ادراکات مدیریت ارشد از شایستگی مدیریت پروژه

As more organisations adopt project management approaches and the demand for project managers grows, there is increasing interest in the competence of project managers and in standards for development and assessment of project management competence. Project management standards are being used extensively throughout the world in training and development, professional certification programmes and corporate project management methodologies on the assumption that there is a positive relationship between standards and effective workplace performance. However, there has been no empirical research reported that supports or indeed questions this assumption. This paper reports on research that explores the relationship between performance against standards and the effectiveness of project management performance in the workplace, as perceived by senior managers. Results suggest that there is no statistically significant relationship between performance against the widely used standards in their entirety, and senior management perceptions of effectiveness of workplace performance. Results suggest different perceptions and expectations of project management competence between project managers and their supervisors, senior management.

Project management has emerged as a field of practice that is being used increasingly by organisations to achieve their business goals. As organisations define more of their activities as projects, the demand for project managers grows, and there is increasing interest in project management competence. Competence of project management personnel is important as they are seen as having a major impact on project performance and therefore on business performance [1], [2], [3] and [4] (Fig. 1). As one senior manager says: “The key to project success is to pick the right project manager”[5]. Concern for project management competence has led to the development of standards for project management knowledge and practice that are used for assessment, development and certification. Development of such standards has been largely qualitative, based on the collective opinion of experienced practitioners as to what project personnel need to know and what they need to be able to do in order to be considered competent. The assumption behind the development and use of project management standards is that the standards describe the requirement for effective performance of project management in the workplace and that those who meet the standards will therefore perform, or be perceived to perform, more effectively than those whose performance does not satisfy the standards. Recognising that no research had been reported that validated or even questioned this assumption of a positive relationship between performance against standards, as a measure of project management competence, and perceptions of effective workplace performance, research was undertaken, using empirical methods, to explore validity of these assumptions. This paper reports on the results of this research which suggest that there are differences in views of project managers and senior managers concerning those aspects of project management competence that distinguish the “right” project manager.

Project management standards are being used extensively throughout the world in training and development, professional certification programmes and corporate project management methodologies, based on the assumption that there is a positive relationship between standards and effective workplace performance. However, there has been no empirical research reported that supports or indeed questions this assumption which is inherent in the way the standards have been developed by expert practitioners. Research was undertaken to explore the relationship between performance against standards and effectiveness of project management performance in the workplace as perceived by senior managers. Results of this research suggest that there is no statistically significant relationship between performance against the standards selected for study, in their entirety, and perceived effectiveness of workplace performance. Patterns of both positive and negative relationships between performance against parts of the standards and perceptions of workplace performance are evident. A difference in perceptions and expectations of project management competence between project managers and their supervisors, senior management, is suggested. In summary, it seems that to increase the likelihood of being perceived as a top performer by senior management, project personnel should: • be located in the USA, • be a project/programme director, • work in organisations that have a project management system and plans based on previous experience (equivalent to level 2 of the SEI capability maturity model [58]), • work on IS/IT and telecommunications projects that have high ambiguity (ill defined goals, methods or both) and are each quite different from one another, • have high levels of project management knowledge especially in areas of cost, time, human resources and procurement, and • concentrate on using time, human resources and procurement practices, with particular attention to monitoring and controlling of cost and time, establishing and negotiating contracts and managing project finalisation. Additionally, although this represents a contradiction of parts of the standards and certainly the findings from research based literature [59], with the exception of those in programme/project director roles, those project personnel who wish to be perceived by senior management as top performers should be very careful in involving themselves in activities that might be interpreted as encroaching upon the territory of general management.