Problem Statement: In Other Words, The Gap

Project managers are accountable for the delivery of business objectives. Rapidly evolving technologies, a set of ever-changing customer requirements, and increasing global business interdependencies all demand that project management (PM) competencies are adequately improved to enable delivery of successful project outcomes. At the same time, the PM discipline as well as related tools, credentials, methodologies, and processes is undergoing some substantial transformations.

Let's approach this issue as we would approach a project. The first and most important step in a project is identifying and expressing the need for the project in the form of a project charter. The charter provides a brief business case, which describes the need for investment — the need for change in the first place. It is a source of authority for the project manager and, equally important, it lets all stakeholders know what the project is all about and what success looks like, so that the project team will know what it means to be done. Remember: a project exists only because some sort of change is being made. A project exists only because the status quo is just not good enough. In effect, every project is about a gap. More accurately, every project is about filling that gap and achieving an important outcome. As to the gap, it could literally be filling a gap, for example, building a bridge over a ravine, or, more likely, it could be more sublime; for example, a new app to match adoptive pet parents with pets who need adoption, which is bridging a very different sort of gap, in that case — anemotional one. Here we apply the very same foundational idea of gap-filling to the initiative to improve PM competency and the resulting success of projects. To do so, we need to describe the current situation and the shortfalls we see as longtime proponents of PM excellence and continuous improvement. So, what is this PM competency gap? We express this gap as a problem statement:

A project manager's level of competency is often not equal to the new and dynamic challenges encountered in his/her profession.

As a result, we see ineffective use of tools and technology, and insufficient communication and engagement in project teams, which leads to suboptimal delivery of business objectives.

Considering how fast the landscape of platforms, methodologies, and team dynamics is changing around us, it is not surprising that PM courses attended just a few years ago are now obsolete, and that even the soft skills learned during the last training courses are no longer working for us. If we try to maintain our PM competencies by using the traditional approach of courses and tests, we find ourselves and our project managers unable to keep up with this rapidly changing environment. The project managers' ability to deliver business outcomes is thus severely impacted, and that is a major threat to any organization.

The answers we will explore in the next chapters are centered around the concept of establishing a continuous learning environment, self-propelled and adaptable, therefore able to evolve with our projects and profession. To leverage an eminent, state-of-the-art approach to this improvement methodology and solid PM best practices, we recommend following these steps:

1. Define the problem: we start with a problem statement and we will continue to explore the compelling reasons behind the need to fill this gap in Chapter 1.

2. Assess your project manager's competency and identify your PM competency gaps: you need to be able to baseline the current status as well as measure progress. We will discuss this phase and the related strategic approaches you can plan in Chapter

3. Study your PM community and its specific traits: whatever competency development bridges you decide to build, they must be based on who will be using them. There is no one-size-fits-all approach that will work for any group of project managers. We will discuss this aspect in Chapter 3.

4. Choose and implement the most suitable improvement options for your goals and audience: we will share what we and other respected colleagues have learned that have worked for many years in this field. We will describe possible implementation choices, planning possibilities, and execution alternatives in Chapters 4, 5, and 6.

5. Monitor progress and continue to improve while implementing your plans and assessing progress which has a beginning and an end with specific deliverables and timelines: you need to consider how to continuously find opportunities to move beyond your current competency levels. We will address these last (but not least!) aspects in Chapters 7 and 8.

THE VALUE OF PM AS A DISCIPLINE

A prerequisite to building competence in your PM staff is the recognition that PM is indeed a discipline of its own. As a testament to this concept, observe the growth of PM in the academic world.

According to a database maintained by the Project Management Institute (PMI) Academic Programs Group, the number of PM-related degrees has grown from two Bachelor's degrees and nine Master's degrees in 1995 — which frankly does not seem that long ago — to 206 Bachelor's degrees and 710 Master's degrees in 2015. There are now 100 times more Bachelor's degrees and 80 times more Master's degrees in the past 20 years, as illustrated in Figures 1.1a–d.

Before you go writing off these statistics as being just an academic exercise, remember that colleges and universities are also businesses, and they're offering these degrees not because they choose to follow that academic path: they are offering these options because of real demand for PM competency! Just as in the world of academia, the acknowledgment of project management as a distinct discipline in an organization is the first, necessary step in the development of a wide array of learning options specifically for the project manager population, rather than directing PM to general management or sales courseware. Managing projects is very different than managing an organization. Projects take place in different environments since they have their own challenges, constraints, and communications requirements. While we recognize that projects and general (operations) management share some attributes, projects are different...