YOU PLAN TO HIRE a new project manager: how can you tell which candidate will perform best? You want to give some of your junior engineers project management training: how can you tell which ones are most likely to succeed at project management? You are reviewing proposals from several vendors for a project that is critical to your company's future: how can you tell if their project manager is capable?
The desire to answer these and similar questions has led PMI's Standards Committee to undertake a project whose ultimate aim is to define and document project manager competencies. As we begin, there are some questions that we must ask and answer during the front end of this project: What exactly is a competency? What is the purpose behind the project? What exists today that we can build on? What process should we use to create this product?
What Exactly is a Competency? On the surface, competent, competency, and competency standards would seem to be little different: they all come from the Latin root competere, which means “to be suitable.” In today's workplace, however, each word has taken on narrower, more specific meaning:
Competent retains most of the original meaning: a competent project manager is properly or sufficiently qualified to manage a project. But competence is also dependent on the characteristics of the project involved. For example, a project manager who is competent to manage residential home construction may not be competent to manage nuclear power plant construction.
Competency is now widely used to refer to a specific, observable characteristic or behavior that leads to excellent performance. This leads to an interesting anomaly: a competent project manager may be missing one or more competencies! Competencies can be difficult to define because of the need to establish a causal link between the behavior and the accomplishment.
Competency standards return us to the traditional meaning: they describe what is expected of a competent employee in the workplace. They differ from traditional job descriptions in that they emphasize results rather than activities. Competency standards normally address multiple levels of performance and also include a description of how to assess competence.
What is the Purpose Behind the Project? Here's another way of asking this question: How would a set of PMI-sanctioned project manager competencies or project manager competency standards be used? One obvious answer is as the basis for a project manager certification program. Due to the success of PMI's PMP Certification Program, many individuals and organizations are looking to PMI to provide an advanced certification targeted at project managers. A PMI Certified Project Manager (a CPM?) might someday become a contractual requirement in some application areas.
Other options include use as the basis for a customized organizational standard or to develop a personal growth plan. Project manager competency standards might also be used as the basis for evaluating candidates for specific jobs.
What Exists Today That We Can Build On? The Australian Institute of Project Managers (AIPM) has an extensive set of project management competency standards, the U.S. Department of Defense has conducted and published several studies on this subject, and the Association of Project Managers (APM) in the U.K. has also published something akin to a competency standard that they call their Body of Knowledge.
What Process Should We Use to Create This Product? PMI's A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge was developed using experts. A draft was written, reviewed, and revised, then the process was repeated until consensus was achieved. AIPM and APM developed their Competency Standards in much the same way. Unfortunately, research in the field of competency shows that expert development has a history of failing to correctly identify the behaviors that produce the desired results.
We could, instead, conduct a research study. Fortunately, the University of Technology, Sydney already has a major research study under way that should offer some insights into how knowledge, experience and personal characteristics interact to produce skilled project managers. We may be able to use the results of this study to develop our product.
Finally, we also have to recognize that we may need several sets of competencies to reflect the needs of different application areas. For example, research shows that technical competencies are more important on smaller, simpler projects while leadership competencies take over as the projects get larger and more complex.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in participating in this exciting and groundbreaking project, please contact William R. Duncan, PMI's director of standards, via phone (781/861-0124), fax (781/862-9908), or email ([email protected]). ■
William R. Duncan, PMP, is a principal in Project Management Partners, a project management consulting and training firm headquartered in Lexington, Mass., USA. He is also director of standards for the Project Management Institute and a member of the Project Management Journal Editorial Review Board.
Frederick L. Ayer, PMP, is retired from active duty with the U.S. Air Force, and is an executive-in-residence on the faculty of the Defense Systems Management College in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the PMI Standards Committee and chair of the Aerospace and Defense SIG.