A business student recently interviewed me via email. She is interested in project management and this was part of an assignment to reach out to people via Twitter to interview about what they do and the state of their industry/role. (My kudos to the professor for encouraging students to use new media to interact with people who are already in the field!)

I asked her permission to share the interview with you, I hope you find it helpful. Leave comments on what you agree and do not agree with!

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Is there anything else that will help me get noticed?

After passing my Prince2 I feel I am ready to pursue my chosen career path and begin applying, what steps should I take to land a suitable role? There are jobs posted on the internet but some can receive up to 400 applications!!! How can I get my foot in the door another way??

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Predictors of Project Management Success

The results were:

Illustration 1 shows those attributes or Essential Traits that were reliable predictors of success within the Project Management Template. (other templates or profiles would have different attributes) That is, ALL of the 28 people in the pilot study scored high in these traits. To explain a bit:

1. Takes Initiative- ALL 28 scored substantial or strong in this attribute. These are all self starters
2. Enthusiastic- Likewise all 28 scored substantial or strong in this attribute as well. These people are able to motivate and energize those around them;
3. Finance/Business- Again, all 28 scored very high in this attribute. They had a “natural head” for business.
4. They wanted to lead- So much for project management being the “accidental profession”.
5. They were Analytical, but not OVERLY so. They did not succumb to ”paralysis by analysis”. They were able to gather enough facts to make sound business and technical decisions, but did not agonize over making them.
6. Handle Autonomy- These people did NOT have to be told what to do nor when to do it. Not only did they take initiative, and were enthusiastic, but they were able to figure out what needed to be done and when’
7. Wanted Challenge- This group tended to be impatient and easily bored.

Subsequent partial studies have validated that in fact, people who score high in these attributes (and did not score low in the other areas) are highly likely to make successful project managers.

Desirable Traits of Project Managers

Then there was a second grouping of attributes, called Desirable Traits. Where,  if a person scored low in these, it would detract from their overall score. Explained another way, it was not important that they scored high in these traits, only that they DIDN’T score low or negatively otherwise it would lower or reduce the probability that they would be successful as a project manager.

As noted above, scoring high (to the right) was not important but IF they scored to the left, it would lower their overall suitability (see Illustration 4)

This part of the research proved to be very interesting, because when I first started out, I expected that Organized, Planning, Handling Conflict, Managing Stress and Systematic would be the top ranked predictors.

Undesirable Traits of Project Managers

Lastly, there is another set of attributes that were “killers”. That is, IF a person scored to the left on any of these, it would be unlikely that they would succeed as project managers…….

If a person scores even moderate to strong to the left, it is unlikely he or she will succeed as a project manager. While these traits are pretty obvious, and would probably be unacceptable to anyone working in a management position, the primary impact would be to lower the overall score.

Overall Project Manager Behavioral Impact

Illustration 4 shows the overall score, which includes all of the pluses from the Essential Traits, less the minuses from the Desirable and Negative traits, to provide an overall score.

Since developing this profile, it has been validated twice, both by large telecommunications companies in SE Asia. One of them is an equipment manufacturer and systems installation contractor and the other is a major telecommunications services provider. Because of Non Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s) I am not able to disclose the specific results, but suffice it to say that the preliminary evidence supports the validity of the pilot research.

Thus having already validated this with 28 people in the pilot study, what we are hoping for next is a company that is willing to work with us to extend this validation by expanding the research population. By selecting a larger sample group including their average project managers as well as their successful project managers and to validate the Negative behavioral traits by selecting another group of marginal or poor performing project managers.  Unfortunately, while all the companies want to test for their superstars, few of them are interested in testing the average or below average performers.

If there are any questions or people would like to learn more or to test themselves or their team against this profile, email me, pauldgphd@gmail.com or John Suermondt, john@harrisonassessments.com

Paul D. Giammalvo, CDT, CCE, MScPM

http://www.getpmcertified.com

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I am a lifelong project manager with some 40 years of project management experience under my belt, most coming from construction project management.

Over the years, I had noticed that some people are just naturally better project managers than others. Looking back over the years, it didn’t seem to matter whether they were engineers, nor did it matter if they were men or women, and having spent most of my life working around the world, it didn’t seem to matter what country they called home or what language they spoke or how they worshiped their God. It also didn’t seem to matter what astrological sign they were born under, nor did it appear obvious that those who were naturally good carried lucky talismans.

And most certainly, it didn’t matter if they did or did not have their PMP, PRINCE2, MBA or PhD behind their name!!

So what was that elusive “something” that made some people just “natural” project managers?

As I began my PhD research, trying to answer the question “Is project management a profession? And if not, what is it?” I intended to include part of that research a chapter on behavioral attributes, but as with most projects, time and quality constraints won out and I had to “descope” and the part that got descoped was the research about behavioral attributes.

Behavioral Attributes Rise From The Dead

But that was only a temporary diversion, and now, PhD in hand, I am resurrecting my interest in the behavioral attributes.

To start with, I relied on previous research done by my good friend and mentor, R. Max Wideman. Max chose to use Myers Briggs, and his research proved not to be sufficiently detailed for the work I had in mind. http://www.maxwideman.com/papers/profiles/myersbriggs.htm

So my quest for something more granular finally turned up a Dr. Dan Harrison, and his Harrison Assessment. http://www.harrisonassessments.com/ Unlike Myers Briggs or Kiersey, the HA Instrument tested for some 155 different behavioral attributes. Furthermore, HA has a feature that measures the CONSISTENCY of the responses, which provides and accurate measure of how truthful the respondent is being, or are they trying to game the system. Having found what I was looking for, I contact Dr. Dan and he suggested I contact his regional representative, Mr. John Suermondt, john@harrisonassessments.com and work with him at least in setting up a pilot. John is originally from the Netherlands, a former commercial diver, now living in Perth, Australian and a really dynamic and cool global kinda guy. And with over 19 years working with Harrison Assessments and was just as excited as I was to pilot this.

All of the participants in the pilot study came from people in the various in-house classes that I teach for our Fortune 500 clients. These classes were either the PMP or CCC/E Prep, or in my graduate level university classes at either ESC Lille Masters of Science in Project Management http://esc-lille.audaxis.com/en/Programmes/MS_MSc/Project_Management_Supply_Chain_Organisation/Specialised_Master_in_Project_and_Programme_Management or the University of Western Australia’s Masters of Energy Systems or the Masters in Petrochemical Engineering degree. http://www.blendedlearning.ecm.uwa.edu.au/

Project Manager Pilot Group

What I did was select a pilot group of 28 practitioners who were deemed “successful” project managers. In order to be deemed “successful” they had to pass three tests:

1. They had to hold the job title of “Project Manager” in their company
2. They had to have demonstrated to me in the classroom environment that they had exceptional leadership skills (top 5% of the class) and
3. They had to have at least 5 years of working experience

This initial pilot study group of 28 consisted of:

• exactly half men, half women;
• about 30% were Muslim
• about 10% were Hindu or Budhists
• remaining 60% were Christian
• 9/28 = 32% Asian
• 6/28 = 21% North American
• 5/28 = 18% Australian/New Zealand
• 5/25 = 18% European (including Eastern Europe, Northern Africa and Turkey)
• 3/28 =11% Central or South America

The industries they represented were:

• Oil, Gas or Mining 9/28 = 32%
• Telecommunications or IT 9/28 = 32%
• HR, Sales or Marketing 5/28 = 18%
• International Development 3/28 = 11%
• Finance 2/28 = 07%

The test was facilitated by John and administered on line (it only takes about 20 minutes) and in all cases, it was conducted in English, although the instrument has been translated into some 15 languages.

Results

Tune in tomorrow for the second part of this series, with the results including predictors, desireable traits, and undesireable traits for project management success!

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