Introduction
The Project Management Institute, PMI®, with more than 235,000 members in over 150 countries, is the world's foremost advocate for the project management profession. The results of the most recent member needs assessment conducted by PMI, completed by members from the USA, Canada, and other geographic regions, indicate that “one of the top two reasons for membership in PMI were identical to the most frequently given reasons in 2000:
- (1) For access to information about project management
- (2) Interest in PMP® and other PMI certifications
Other high-rated reasons, consistent with 2000 findings, include:
- (3) For professional recognition
- (4) For access to professional development
- (5) For networking/affiliation
- (6) To support the profession”
Research conducted by the American Society for Training & Development, the ninth consecutive State of the Industry report, indicated that “organizations are linking learning to both individual and organizational performance. The most frequently mentioned strategies used to forge that link include:
- - “maximize the effectiveness of learning by aligning learning activities with business needs, and providing timely access to relevant learning opportunities.
- - use formal processes to align short- and long-term business strategies with competency, learning, and performance solution needs and priorities.
- - map learning resources to competencies, individual development plans, jobs, and corporate goals.” (Sugrue & Rivera, 2005, p. 16)
The organizations that implemented the aforementioned strategies reported:
- - “improvements in employee satisfaction, quality of products and services, cycle time, productivity, revenue, and overall profitability.” (Sugrue & Rivera, 2005, p. 16)
- - “Increases in retention and employee satisfaction were most often attributed to executive, management, and career development programs.” In one instance, “the result was a decrease in voluntary attrition to nearly half the industry rate.
- - Increases in customer satisfaction were attributed to revision or improvements to already well-established learning initiatives and systems…. An organization was able to outperform its competitors by over 10 percent in customer satisfaction ratings, modifying the customer service culture to emphasize financial results.” (Sugrue & Rivera, 2005, p. 18)
Confirming this research are the results of a study performed for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). These results find that “internal career development programs are a relatively recent phenomenon. Larger corporations began to develop them in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they are beginning to appear in smaller organizations…. The typical employee views a career development program as a path to upward mobility, the manager views it as a retention and motivational tool and upper management views it as a tool for succession planning. From any angle, it is a win-win proposition.”… “Career development programs within an organization can be an effective tool for retention, improving communication, broadening employee skills, raising employee morale and job satisfaction, and even attracting quality applicants” (Prochaska, 2000, pp. 1 - 2).
Finally, research conducted by PMI with 383 business and government senior executives from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, United States, and Canada agree that that project management proficiency is a matter of strategic importance to their organization. However, additional research conducted by PMI with over 5000 respondents indicated that only 31% had a clearly defined project management career path to guide their development.
In summary, the case for corporate project management career paths is conclusive. PMI members join the association for information about the profession, access to professional development, and networking. Corporations that align short- and long-term business strategies with competency and learning report increased ability to retain essential employees and increased employee satisfaction. However, only 31% of corporations have formal project management career paths to guide the development of project managers.
PMI's career framework – The Current State
At present, PMI offers a number of products/services whose output is related to creating a project management career path. Among these products/services are:
- - The Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM®), Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Program Management Professional (PgMPSM) certifications
- - The Basic Knowledge Assessment (BKA), an online assessment product
- - Seminars World® and eSeminarsWorld™ offerings
- - Courses offered by PMI Registered Education Providers
- - Articles and papers form the PMI James R. Snyder Center for Knowledge and Wisdom
- - PMI Global Congress Areas of Focus
- - Career Headquarters job service
- - PMI's Career Track magazine
However, the application of these resources, in their raw form, to create a project management career path is not intuitive. Essential components of a career path are skills/competencies, job descriptions, assessments, and professional development activities. Project management skills/competencies are the foundation of a project management career path. They may be identified through examination of PMI's A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Third Edition, The Standard for Program Management, The Standard for Portfolio Management and/or the Project Manager Competency Development Framework. Additional sources may include references published by the Association for Project Management (APM), the Australian Institute of Project Management (AIPM), and the Japan Project Management Forum (JPMF) to name a few. Analysis of the references listed above and the results of PMI research, conducted worldwide, have identified project manager, program manager and portfolio manager professional competencies, interpersonal competencies (soft skills) and leadership competencies (Exhibit 1). Performed in all regions of the world by skilled psychomatricians, results of the studies identified and validated skills used by project managers, program managers, or portfolio managers as they perform their roles.
Exhibit 1 – Project Management Competencies
During the studies, skills are evaluated based on their importance to the role, frequency of application in the role, and criticality of proper application in the role of project manager, program manager or portfolio manager. The weighted average of these three values (importance, frequency, and criticality) have been used to identify the top twenty (20) skills performed by either a project manager, program manager or portfolio manager. These skills may be used by two distinct audiences; corporations as they develop project management career ladders and practitioners as they evaluate their project management proficiency.
For the corporate user, PMI has made a comprehensive set of resources available to facilitate the creation of job descriptions that would form a project management career ladder. These resources include project management skill definitions categorized into professional, interpersonal, and leadership competencies and role definitions for the roles of project manager, program manager, and portfolio manager within the project management profession. Additional dimensions to be considered as a corporation creates a set of project management job descriptions are the value of the project/program/portfolio, the complexity of the project/program, the level of uncertainty and/or the level of change management experienced in the project/program. A final consideration is need for an industry specific component in the role, e.g., construction vs. vehicle design/development vs. pharmaceutical, etc. Typically, a subset of approximately eight (8) skills is selected for the positions being created for the project management career ladder. Finally the level to which the skill is applied, the proficiency level, must be identified for each of the positions in the job ladder. The proficiency level is defined using a five (5) level scale where level zero (0) indicates no knowledge of the skill is required, level one (1) indicates knowledge of the skill is required; level two (2) indicates the ability to apply the skill under supervision is required; level three (3) indicates the ability to apply the skill independently is required; and level four (4) indicates the ability to apply the skill at the mastery level is required.
Another component of a job/position description is the definition of the job. The foundation for this definition, a one-paragraph definition of the job, has been created by PMI as an adjunct product of PMI's bi-annual Salary Survey (Project Management Institute, 2005). The salary survey is administered continually to members. Eleven (11) job definitions, which range from educator/trainer, consultant and specialist all the way to chief executive office, have been created to enable participants of the survey to identify their jobs as they respond to the survey. During this process, greater than ninety percent (90%) of the participants have been able to identify their job using the eleven (11) definitions. This set of project management job definitions is available, as a component of PMI's career framework initiative, to facilitate the creation of job descriptions (Exhibit 2).
Additional components of a job/position description are the level of experience, e.g., time in position, and qualifications. These additional components may be educational degrees as well as professional credentials. PMI has created a family of project management credentials that may be included to meet this need. These credentials are: the Certified Associate in Project Management, CAPM®, the Project Management Professional, PMP®, and the Program Management Professional, PgMPSM.
The development of the project management career ladder and its job descriptions is typically performed by a set of project, program, or portfolio managers with field experience with the aid of the corporate human resource department following the process outlined in Exhibit 2.
Exhibit 2 – Sources of job Description Content
The assessment of skill proficiency by the individual as well as by peers and/or the individual's supervisor is another key consideration as corporations create a project management career ladder and position an individual in the career ladder. Self assessment and peer/supervisor proficiency assessment is a component of PMI's career framework initiative. Additionally, PMI provides the Basic Knowledge Assessment (BKA) as an assessment to satisfy this requirement. The BKA evaluates general knowledge of project management practices based on the five Project Management Process Groups (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing) of the PMBOK® Guide- Third Edition (Project Management Institute, 2004). Additionally, a modified version of the BKA that evaluates knowledge in the nine knowledge areas of the PMBOK® Guide- Third Edition (Project Management Institute, 2004) is available to corporations.
For the individual practitioner, PMI has created a set of baseline job descriptions for the roles of Project Manager I, Project Manager II, Project Manager III, Program Manager, and Portfolio Manager to aid the practitioner as they advance through the project management profession. PMI's career framework web-based system enables the practitioner to identify a job within the profession, perform a self-assessment and request peer-assessments, and store the results for review at a later date.
Developmental resources, ideally linked to a skill, are crucial for the development of knowledge or proficiency in that skill. Adult learning theory has identified that individuals have varied learning preferences. Some individuals prefer to learn by attending a formal, instructor led course while others prefer to learn at a distance and finally others prefer to learn through independent study by reading an article or a text on the subject. PMI provides resources for all of these learning preferences through the SeminarsWorld®, eSeminarsWorld™, and web-based self study programs and the PMI Knowledge and Wisdom Center as well as from PMI Registered Education Providers. Additionally, PMI publishes books and standards, PM Network®, the Project Management Journal®, and proceedings from PMI's Global Congresses. Articles from each of these sources are being indexed to the relevant skill and/or knowledge area to enable individuals to locate references that might be used to enhance their knowledge and/or proficiency in that skill or knowledge area.
PMI's career framework – The Future State
As PMI continues to perform research with a wide variety of organizations, there is the potential for the identification of a consistent set of metrics for the variables that influence the creation of job descriptions. Typically, as a corporation creates a job ladder, human resource professionals evaluate the level of experience, e.g., time in position, size of project team, size of the project measured as value of the project (typically amount of time and materials described in financial terms) and other variables as they create the job descriptions that are components of the ladder. In most instances, jobs higher on the ladder have increased responsibility as categorized by these variables. However, these metrics vary considerably based on the industry. An example of this is the value of the project measured in financial terms for a first level project manager. In some industries, a first level project manager has responsibility for a project valued at less than $250,000. However, in the case of the United States Department of Energy, a first level project manager has responsibility for a project valued at $1,000,000. In a similar fashion, project team size varies considerably based on industry. It would appear that a consistent set of metrics might be created based on industry type. Research in this area is ongoing and may confirm this suspicion.
PMI updates relevant standards on an approximately five (5) year cycle. As the updates for The Standard for Program Management, The Standard for Portfolio Management, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), the update to the Project Manager Competency Development Framework, and other relevant standards and references, the competencies (Exhibit 1) must be updated to reflect those skills and competencies that are most relevant to the project management profession. The process to create or update these publications was to engage worldwide stakeholders, in some cases through regional meetings, to identify the relevant material and create the draft documentation that is passed through the publication process. Upon receipt of the updated references, a comprehensive evaluation will be performed to validate the existing skills and competencies and update the relevant resources within PMI's career framework initiative. To date, the competencies have been checked for consistency with A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge-Third Edition (PMBOK® Guide), The Standard for Program Management, The Standard for Portfolio Management, and the Project Manager Competency Development Framework.
Conclusion
The case for corporate career paths is conclusive. Large corporations began to develop career paths, in many cases as they created corporate universities, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Employees view career paths and the corresponding professional development references as an employee benefit. Research has identified career paths as one source of increased employee satisfaction and retention. However, 69% of corporations do not have formal project management career paths. The Project Management Institute, to advocate the profession, has recognized this need and is providing a set of tools that may be used by corporate human resource departments as they create project management career paths.