2013 05-01 APMG Evolving your PM Skills from Great Practices to Best Pract…

May 1, 2013 APMG-International Showcase Canada: “Evolving Your PM Skills from Great Practices to Best Practices”

1 Ken Howell, Executive Partner, Paradigm Consulting Services & PCGI Consulting Services [email protected]

I was asked to speak to my professional development journey for today’s presentation.

I’ll take you through my journey as it has evolved, so far…. My ask for you is to attempt to draw parallels to your career and take any lessons I have learned and apply them to your professional development plans.

I’ll talk to my early certifications, my experiences in achieving my PMP and my foray into specialization certifications.

At this point I will speak about a period of self reflection I had and how that shaped my professional development journey into broadening my horizons.

And this will all take me to where I came across a suite of Best Practices and the Cabinet Office certifications.

I’ll wrap up my presentation by speaking to where I envision going next and take any questions you may have.

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Ken Howell, Executive Partner, Paradigm Consulting Services & PCGI Consulting Services [email protected]

Mine is a typical journey that many of you have already started. My journey may not be right for everyone, but it was right for me. But, the key is to have a journey!

During this portion of my presentation, draw parallels with your career and ask yourself if you see an end destination. While I have been in the industry for a number of years, I still ask myself the same question I ask my kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

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After graduating with a Computer Science degree from the University of Regina, and being terrible at racquetball and golf, I recognized that certifications were key to my professional growth and career advancement.

I started my certification journey with my I.S.P. from CIPS and a couple of ITIL courses, were an early first step.

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I came to the realization that obtaining my PMP was my next avenue. Like many others, I participated in a study group as well as a comprehensive course to prepare me for the exam.

Many of you will remember that you probably felt very comfortable with the topic prior to starting to study, but you quickly realized that you need to learn the “PMI way” to pass that exam!

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I remember those last few nights preparing. The stress was pretty high. But I eventually made it to that exam.

After what seemed like a day that never would arrive, I walked in and sat down at that computer, and…..

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After a long 4 hours, it was over. I still remember that moment between clicking “done” and the calculation of the final grade, it seemed like forever.

I came out of the exam and the stress washed away, and a few beers did help.

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Now it was time to get to work. I used those skills that I learned in the study groups right away. I ended up PMing a variety of projects:

- from custom application development projects

- to small upgrades

- to medium sized projects such as Exchange upgrades

- to cellular tower installations

- to larger healthcare system implementations

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So after a few years of flexing my PMP-skills, I was wondering what was next.

I passed my PMP exam, now what?

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With all the different options, it was a challenge to make that decision of where to expend my energy and focus. I felt that the options were endless, all pointing in different directions.

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I decided to start looking around to figure out what was next. From the PMI website, “Professional development isn’t a one-time thing; it should be a continuous part of your project management career. Make it a priority to assess and improve your skill set, and you’ll increase your value to your organization and enhance your future career prospects.”

This is very true. I wrote an article for the October issue of the IIBA BA Connection. It’s theme was the right professional development is crucial for “your” professional development. We are all building our toolkit of skills and experiences. Spend your money and your time wisely.

http://iiba.informz.ca/admin31/content/template.asp?sid=3117&ptid=77&brandid=5015&uid=0&mi=244101

I can tell you that an early decision I made to take a training course in Powerbuilder was an example of the wrong professional development, for me. I have longer memories of my week in Houston than the benefit that that training provided.

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Another quote from PMI website: “Plan your next step and prepare for the future.”

I had been in the industry and wanted something more. I did some self reflection and had to ask myself what do I like doing? Was it a specific area or type of projects that I enjoy?

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It was time to take my early career advice and start working on additional certifications.

Almost every training company has certifications or designations that they will tell you will be the best thing for you.

Aren’t you the best person to know what is right for you?!?

But I needed to understand more about what potential additional certifications were needed for.

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Now, in choosing how you develop your career, ask yourself, what is in it for you AND your company or client?

All your professional development should make you more knowledgeable, professional, connected, cost-effective and ultimately in demand.

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When you’re more knowledgeable, your client or your company you work for gets better value for fees or salary paid. You spend more time understanding what’s going on around the project so you can put the work into a sounder context.

Understanding how other areas in your client’s business operate and the language they use will help you make better recommendations to your sponsor.

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In a world of questionable practices, and in cases where we hear of “shady consultants”, working under a set of ethics or Codes of Professional Conduct, can ensure that your clients will be protected.

As you continue in your career, you will find that a cornerstone of many certifications or designations are these codes of conduct. These will help guide you to ensure your professionalism is never in doubt.

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In growing your career and professional network, you will find that your circle of influence and circle of control will grow. You will come into contact with a number of new individuals that will broaden your professional breadth. As “your rolodex” grows, your clients benefit from those relationships and they may come to you looking for advice on areas that you are not qualified to do and you will then be able to direct them to qualified people they can trust.

A colleague of mine received a compliment from a client recently, “one reason we like working with you is that you bring us excellent people.”

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May 1, 2013 APMG-International Showcase Canada: “Evolving Your PM Skills from Great Practices to Best Practices


When you’re more knowledgeable, professional and connected, your clients get greater value for every dollar spent.

When the client is happy, so are we!

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All this leads to more recommendations and more work. If you work for a consulting organization, it also leads you to the potential to be more selective about the work you do. Wouldn’t you like to be more selective in the projects that you take on?

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I also went down the path of industry certifications and away from the PM methodologies. As I began specializing in healthcare, I began attending an annual course offered by the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine. For 3 years, 6 weeks at a time, I attended a series of night classes focusing on 12 different topics in the medical field. I also achieved a designation by Canada’s Health Informatics Association called a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems.

What kind of certifications exist in your industry?

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How many of us have heard these excuses in our projects? Ask yourself why.

As we all know, all projects are about change, change in one way of doing things to another, change in a solution, etc.

In a perfect world, not changing is much easier than changing.

Prosci is a change management methodology that is a well known and in place in many organizations today.

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May 1, 2013 APMG-International Showcase Canada: “Evolving Your PM Skills from Great Practices to Best Practices:


So let me ask you, does anyone have a suggestions for other specialization certifications?

Other courses that are very good are facilitation skills and conflict management. I am assuming that we all have dealt with conflict over our career. Wouldn’t it have been easier to deal with it with training and guidance?

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At this point, I thought it was appropriate to do a lessons learned for my career development to date.

I realized that I still have more to learn and that continued professional development is crucial.

I’ve now come to the conclusion that understanding my client’s business is just as important as knowing my own.

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There are many ways I can improve my knowledge of my client’s business, for example maybe an MBA

There are a number of business or management certifications out there, but I found that I was again at a cross roads.

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With all the different options, it was a challenge to make that decision of where to expend my energy and focus. I felt that the options were endless, all pointing in different directions.

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I realized my goal was to be able to make myself stand out in the crowd from all the other professionals that I was competing with.

With thousands of consultants out there, how do you stand out from the crowd?

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I realized that there must be more training opportunities and certifications than are offered in our country or North America. What about the rest of the world? We’d all love to say that Canadians do everything right, but I think we can still learn a thing or two from other countries.

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I looked around for a worldwide certification and found the Certified Management Consultant designation. It’s recognized in 49 countries around the world including Canada and the United States.

Consulting is an unregulated industry/profession.

The barrier to entry is $10….the cost of printing business cards….because anyone can print anything on business cards….and many people print the words, Management Consultant.

Many people believe that being a management consultant is akin to being an expert. But, it is so much more than that. Being an expert is not enough.

A true management consultant imparts his knowledge to his clients to leave them in a better place than when they came in.

Objectivity and independence is crucial for success. A management consultant’s recommendations must never be in question, there should never be any question of motivation behind any recommendations. The client’s interest’s must always be first.

It isn’t easy staying objective and independent, but it is a hallmark of being a professional management consultant

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Just as much as the CMC designation can stand alone, it is also complementary to other professional designations Many consultants obtain their CMC to complement their area of expertise (PMP and Project Management, CMAs and Finance, CHRP and Human Resources, CAs and Accounting) Most other designations indicate expertise within a silo or a specific area. The CMC designation ensures that the consulting professionals know how to impart their wisdom on to their clients. It is about the “giving of advice”….not the depth of expertise (as the other designations prove). While it is not known many joint Prince2 and CMC recipients there are, it is known that there are almost 200 individuals in Canada that have their PMP that also have achieved their CMC designation.

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As Project Managers, many of us have our PMP, but having this does not instantly provide you with all the tools you need.

Why not leverage the collective knowledge of practices that have been refined over a number of years WITHOUT the motive of profit. These practices have grown from being great practices to Best Practices.

So what is a “Best Practice”? It is a method that has consistently shown results superior to other methods and is used as a benchmark.

Projects in Controlled Environments was originally developed in 1989 as a public domain methodology by the Office of Government Commerce in the British Government. This department is now called Cabinet Office. It’s the predominant project management methodology outside of North America and growing in use here in Canada and the US.

The maturity of these best practices helps drive the improved performance of projects utilizing these methodologies

Did you know that over 1 million people have taken the Prince2 exam to date? Over 550,000 are Practitioners.

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That compares with only 400,000 PMPs mostly in North America.

May 1, 2013 APMG-International Showcase: “Evolving Your PM Skills from Great Practices to Best Practices

Ken Howell, Executive Partner, PCGI Consulting Services [email protected] 30

I considered providing an overview of a number of practices from the Cabinet Office, but I know that there are other presentations at the conference today that you can derive more detailed information than what I will be able to present over the remainder of my time here.

What I thought I would share are some of my lessons that I have learned during my years of experience with the Cabinet Office suite of products:

I’ll speak briefly to

• PRINCE2 – Projects in a Controlled Environment

• Program Management – MSP

• Portfolio Management – MoP

• Risk Management – M_o_R

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Overall, my 4 years of experience with Prince2 has been very positive.

• When implementing Prince2, understand where you corporately are weak in your current methodology and ensure that you reflect these weaknesses in your future rollout.

• Implementing Prince2 is a change just like any other project. Once you have determined your final state for implementation, do a pilot implementation on a project as a dry run through to work out the kinks.

• There are templates galore on the internet, download these templates, standardize for your company and them provide sample information to demonstrate the level of quality expected within each document. These documents can then be used as reference material.

• While Prince2 is a wonderful methodology, any methodology could smother a project if it is not sized correctly. While the content of the products should not change that much, the number of deliverables will. A small 6 month project should not have the same number of products as a multi-year project impacting hundreds of users. Size the number of deliverables appropriately.

• Once you have determined how you will implement and have chosen your go live day, don’t retrofit existing projects to the new methodology. While that may be the cleanest approach it also may not be the most efficient use of your PM staff. Projects more than half done should not be moved to the new methodology. But alternatively, 100% of new projects should follow your new implementation standards.

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• At the MSP and MOP level, when communicating with senior executives, frankly, they don’t care about methodologies, speak about the benefits derived. You should never communicate that MSP and MOP will guarantee successful projects. It will improve the likelihood of achieving the benefits identified.

• MSP and MOP, while complimentary to each other and to Prince2, don’t have any prerequisite implementations. You can implement them all independently and derive benefits from the all.

• If you find that areas of the company are ready for certain implementations ahead of others, use them as your pilots first and of course do not retrofit the methodology implementation to existing programs or portfolios.

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My experiences to date with M_o_R are fairly new and I don’t have an in-depth appreciation of the lessons learned, but I can tell you the approach on how to define and identify a risk clearly has excited me.

How many of us had the standard risk in our documents called “inadequate resources”. Everyone of us knew what that meant, but we all had different interpretations.

The M_o_R definition here clearly articulates what that means and actually defines the end result.

Imagine going to your Project Board or Steering Committee and stating a risk of “inadequate resources”. Their answer should be “so what?”

Articulating the risk in the M_o_R approach will definitely get their attention.



In the end though, after continuing your professional development, it Is about applying these skills to your work.

Demonstrating your desire for continuous development will provide benefits to you immediately in the improvement of your work skills, will be noticed at your company and may provide opportunities for you to move up the ladder (and maybe do a few speaking engagements!!).

My wife has a favorite quote on our fridge right now from Stedman Graham (more commonly known as Oprah Winfrey’s partner):

“Take the power of education, information and knowledge and filter that knowledge into your own life to create your own future”

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Throughout my journey, I’ve always looked at where I would look to continue to develop my career. But right now I am focused on providing advice to my current clients.

But I’ll be honest, I do have my next journey mapped out. I’m interested in the Registered Consultant designation in Prince2 and MOP and I am hoping I will be fortunate to be awarded sometime in the future.

My company, Paradigm Consulting Group’s motto is “… when success matters”, I hope our clients will continue to look to my firm when they want to be successful in any endeavour. If they are successful, so am I.

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May 1, 2013 APMG-International Showcase Canada: “Evolving Your PM Skills from Great Practices to Best Practices


The key message I wanted to share is that while your PMP may be a start in your professional development journey, you should continue to look to all avenues for professional development.

My goal has always been and will always be, to evolve my project management skills from great practices to best practices.

While I have found my journey to be rewarding, I urge you to find the professional development, designation or certification that is right for your career.

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Career

2013 05-01 APMG Evolving your PM Skills from Great Practices to Best Pract…