Parallel Project Training podcast | Matt Bolton and Ruth Phillips
Automatically transcribed from the supplied audio and lightly formatted for readability. Timestamps are approximate. This is not a word-for-word verified transcript; occasional recognition errors may remain.
[00:09]
Well, hello and welcome to another Parallel Project Training podcast. I’m your host today, Matt. And today I’m pleased to be joined by my colleague and Parallel’s Managing Director, Ruth Phillips. Ruth, welcome to the podcast.
[00:18]
Hello, Matt. Really delighted to be here today. Got some exciting news to share.
[00:23]
We have indeed. Yeah, we’ve got a very exciting topic, an interesting topic to talk about today and an announcement to share a little bit later on in the episode. So the topic for today is project leadership and what it really means to lead a project and why being an excellent project manager doesn’t automatically make the next step easy. As project managers become more experienced, the demands on them change. They’re still expected to deliver, but they also need to bring people with them, make sound decisions when there isn’t a clear answer and navigate relationships well beyond the project team.
[00:52]
That’s a shift many people will recognise, but it isn’t always one they’ve been helped to prepare for. So Ruth and I are going to explore where people tend to find that transition difficult, what they may need to do differently and what we’ve learned from our research. We’re then going to introduce Parallel’s new Applied Project Leadership programme, why we’ve developed it and why it should help people with making the leap. So without further ado, Ruth, what is the difference between being a good project manager and a good project leader?
[01:20]
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. And I think that initially we might not think there’s too much of a difference in it. You know, often these terms are used interchangeably. Some organisations call their project managers project leaders. But I think that there is this fundamental difference between management and leadership. You know, there’s lots that’s been written about this that I see management as much more, I might say, inward looking and potentially even backwards looking, although there is absolutely a proactivity that is needed in management.
[01:55]
But it’s about, you know, organisation setting things up, planning things out, checking that things have then gone to that plan, producing reports, you know, those kind of activities that we would see very much in the heart of traditional project management. Project leadership, for me, is much more focused on the future. And it’s much more people focused as well. So good project leadership needs all of that management to be going on. But it’s a lot more about selling a vision, communication, building rapport, using emotional intelligence, managing people’s expectations, driving things forward rather than kind of scrutinising data and, you know, re-planning and producing status reports and those kind of things.
[02:48]
It’s a more strategic role for me being a project leader than a kind of a much more, maybe you might call it tactical role, being a project manager, if that makes sense.
[02:58]
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It’s really interesting. When do people typically realise that the skills that have got them this far aren’t what they need to take the next step?
[03:06]
Yeah, I think that what tends to happen is that project managers become good at managing. You know, they maybe go on a training course where they learn about project lifecycle, the competencies that are required in things like planning, resourcing, budgeting, risk management, all of those things. And over time, as they work on projects, they become technically very capable, technically very good. And so, of course, the organisation that they’re working for, it’s a natural thing that they have a look at their project managers, they review their performance and they say, hey, you’re doing really well at this.
[03:44]
This is great. We’re going to give you more challenge to do. We’re going to give you a bigger project, larger budget, longer timescale, more complex, et cetera. And I think that the project managers then, as they grow and develop, they get to work on and manage more complex projects. But I think that there always becomes a tipping point, either where the size and the complexity of the project just gets to that point where they really can’t just rely on being a good project manager.
[04:18]
They’ve got to do more of that future vision, communication, people focus. Or it could be because of the type of project. Maybe it’s the challenge. Maybe this is a project that is working with much more multidisciplinary team or different stakeholders, suppliers, contractors. There always seems to be that tipping point where, ah, right, OK, yeah, I need to have a different set of skills now. I really need to be able to manage expectations, work with different groups of people. I really need to be able to drive my project and deliver through others.
[04:56]
I can’t just rely on the fact that I’ve got those really good, strong organisational skills to get stuff done.
[05:03]
Yeah, that’s interesting. So it might be that it’s either thrust upon people in terms of like a job promotion or a new project they have to work on. Or it might just be a result of kind of an evolving project environment in terms of the complexity of the projects they’re working on.
[05:16]
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes, you know, they might have been working on projects of a similar size, value, etc. But this particular project now, maybe it’s due to the stakeholder environment. Maybe there’s more opposition, maybe there’s difficulties, maybe it’s more innovative, technically complex. And actually, then the reaction that we’re going to have with other people and the interaction that we have with other people is going to have to be a little bit different. And another thing that I’m just thinking about there is actually it could also be down to the number of interfaces that they’ve got to manage.
[05:57]
A very wise colleague of ours, Paul, often talks about how project management is just about interface management, really. And if you’ve got lots of different touch points with other teams, with other organisations, with other disciplines, the more of those touch points you’ve got and the more frequently you’ve got to manage them, I think the more you’ve got to step up into a leadership role rather than trying to manage all of those things.
[06:24]
Exactly, I agree with that. And so why do people find this transition so difficult then?
[06:29]
Why do we find so many experienced, capable project managers struggling as their responsibilities grow?
[06:36]
I think there’s a few things at play. I think that juggling all of those different things becomes increasingly more challenging. And the pressure of delivery, of time, and being able to spin all of the plates at the same time, I think that becomes more difficult. I think that also, fundamentally, there’s a different set of skills at play. And they might be skills that they haven’t used so much as managers, but they need to use as leaders. And also, I think that there’s an element of the confidence in their leadership as well.
[07:21]
I’m making a massive generalisation here, but I generally find that project managers, people that do this as their profession, they like to feel in control because they’re measured on that. The stakeholders want something delivering within time, cost, and to quality so that they get the outcomes of value and benefit that they’re expecting from this. And so if your name is on the PMP or in the org chart or whatever it may be, you’re on the hook for that. I think there’s an element that project managers really like to be in control of things.
[08:00]
As they move into that leadership position, they can’t be in direct control of everything because there’s just too many interfaces. There’s too many levels of delegation. And I think that transition, where you’re maybe using much more of a supportive or participative kind of leadership style, to one where actually you’ve got to step back a little bit more and be comfortable with not having that absolute direct control, that you use trust a lot more, but also with that trust because you are ultimately responsible for this.
[08:43]
You’ve also got to put in place controls so that you can trust the teams that you’re working with. And I think that distance maybe between them and the delivery of the work can be difficult for some project managers. And I think also some project managers maybe have never thought so much about the people skills. Now, that’s not to say I don’t want to sort of tar project managers with a brush to say that they’d much rather be looking at a budget spreadsheet or updating their risk log than they would talking to people. Absolutely not.
[09:24]
But I think that their career and their career success has probably been predicated on those organisational skills rather than the people skills. Whereas now there’s going to be a tip in the opposite direction that those people skills are going to become more and more important for them.
[09:39]
Yeah, I think they’re both really interesting points. I like what you said about the element of control. I think you do find project managers trying to control everything and feeling in control of everything. That’s very much what people are taught to do to monitor and control everything. But I think increasingly so do we see kind of an uncertain environment with the world going on around us and the evolution of technology and things like that. And actually this sort of feeling of control that people are sort of craving is one of the things that we’ve noticed.
[10:09]
People have to sort of get over all this. They have to be comfortable dealing with uncertainty, not necessarily being in control of everything. And I think that’s a really good point. I think absolutely the pace of change, the uncertainty and the wider environment, the context that projects are being run on all means that there is much more ambiguity. I call it a VUCA environment in sort of project management terms that there’s a lot of change, a volatility, there’s a lot of ambiguity going on.
[10:39]
You’re expected to make decisions with incomplete information, which is not particularly comfortable. And particularly if you’re used to having that level of tight control, that can be even more uncomfortable. And of course, going back to what I was saying earlier, as the pieces of work that you’re managing becomes much bigger, you’re not going to be that expert in everything. I think a lot of project managers maybe have derived that sort of comfort and control because they’re working in an industry, working on projects that they’ve got experience of similar things that they’ve got that level of expertise.
[11:22]
But as you work on bigger and bigger initiatives, there are going to be lots and lots of areas of the initiative that you have very little experience of and very little technical knowledge of. And I think that then it’s even more important that you’re comfortable kind of working through others, comfortable with making decisions and giving direction where you’re not the expert and that you’re feeling comfortable not having that absolutely tight control. And I think that comfort is important because without it, you can get overwhelmed and stressed. So it’s a big well-being issue as well for project managers.
[12:05]
If they’re not feeling comfortable with that, they’re not enjoying their work. So this kind of works both ways as well, that we want to make sure the project managers are happy in their roles as much as making sure they’ve got the right skills to be able to do what they need to do.
[12:21]
Yeah, so it seems like sort of the difference between sort of managing the project and then leading projects is that there’s a different set of skills and habits that people kind of need to let go of in terms of the day-to-day running of the project. So especially for these project managers that have built their reputation and technical expertise and things like that. So there’s almost a whole set of habits people need to let go of, isn’t there?
[12:43]
Absolutely, and I think that we’re going to talk about the programme that we’re launching later, but I think that is very central to it actually, is that there is a behavioural change that’s needed. And that means that yes, there are new behaviours that the project manager needs to get used to doing and new habits to be formed, but also old habits and old behaviours to let go of as well. There’s a bit of a transformation that they need to go on themselves as well.
[13:18]
Yeah, very much so. So our research has sort of broken it down into two different sections, sort of leading the project and then leading the people. So when it comes to leading the project, particularly, what are the elements in the people tend to struggle with in terms of leading a project?
[13:32]
Yeah, so I think there’s more of the strategy understanding how this project fits into the context. A lot of our clients are talking to me at the moment about the need for greater commerciality of their project managers. Of sort of, you know, questioning the value of really kind of not just kind of going through the mechanics of the process, but really thinking about, you know, is that the right thing? Is that the right value that we’re getting there?
[14:09]
How is that going to work? So I think that there’s elements of that. I think there’s elements of innovation and asking the right questions and getting away from that. Well, we’ve done it this way all the time. Are there ways that we can do this more efficiently, more effectively?
[14:30]
I think it’s also about thinking about how we can use different delivery models as well. Again, you know, I think we need to get away from the kind of the more transactional kind of focus that a project manager might have into much more of the leadership of, you know, thinking outside the box, to quote a phrase, to think about how we can really deliver the outcomes of the project, not just the outputs of the project. So, you know, moving away from, right, okay, you know, we’ve delivered this new IT system, we’ve built this bridge, but okay, have we enabled the value of that thing to actually be delivered as well?
[15:16]
Which is a bit of a long term focus and it might not be kind of within the direct responsibility of the project manager to see that those outcomes and benefits are actually delivered. But they’ve got to make sure that what they produce is capable of doing that. So I think it’s that longer term, that strategic commerciality is part and parcel of that as well. Those are the kind of things that we’ll be looking at.
[15:41]
Yeah, so sort of having that wider view of the context of the project, rather than just being sort of insulated and working within the project is understanding where the project sits and how it contributes towards the business’s success and what’s coming down the line and what’s going to affect it externally, having that sort of wider view, isn’t it?
[15:57]
Absolutely. So that’s kind of the project itself. What about leading people? What have we noticed that people tend to struggle with when it comes to leading people?
[16:05]
Yeah, so I think first of all, there’s a bit of a bridge between the really sort of leading the project focused topics and the very people focused topics. And I would say that bridge is around managing stakeholders or engaging stakeholders and managing stakeholder expectations. I think one of the things about kind of leading the project, we talked about the uncertainty and it’s about having the courage, the leadership to kind of step up and talk to stakeholders about the challenges that there may be about how to engage those stakeholders, about understanding the context of the stakeholders and what’s important to them so that you can kind of pitch the direction of the project, how it’s going to help, how they can help the project as well.
[17:05]
And I think that this is one of the biggest challenges for a lot of project managers moving into more senior roles and larger scope projects is that your stakeholder environment will become even more complex. And, you know, they’ll have different priorities and different agendas and they won’t agree and there will be conflicts and you still have to steer this project through that environment. And you won’t be able to do it unless you engage those stakeholders, unless you really understand how you can influence them and how you use that influence to deliver the project.
[17:41]
Yeah, and I suppose that word influence is quite important, isn’t it? Because it becomes a question of not just influencing your own direct environment and your own project team, but influencing things going on and the people working around your project to make sure you’re channeling your project and guiding your project through those kind of uncertainties and using the people around you in the business. And suppliers and customers and the wider public to kind of help you guide your project.
[18:05]
Absolutely. It’s kind of like creating this mini network and you understand, you know, who can support you on certain things, what’s in it for them, how the project could actually work to enable them to achieve their aims or all of those kind of things. And as you said then, I think as we move towards much more focus on leading the people maybe within the project, that influencing skill is really important as well. That influencing and I’d say negotiation as well is really vital. I think that there’s a big piece that I think that actually this could apply to project managers as well as project leaders, but it becomes increasingly important for project leaders.
[18:51]
Around building a team, maintaining the team, maintaining motivation, coaching, thinking about their leadership style, thinking about how they’re perceived, thinking about how they can change, how they should change the way that they lead depending on the situation, depending on the people that they’re leading and really understanding the impact that they have in terms of their actions, their emotions on others and how they can build and establish rapport. You know, that’s kind of the other end then of the spectrum of being really looking at those human skills and the importance of those both for managing the team and also they’ll underpin the stakeholder management that you need to do as well.
[19:39]
Yeah, that’s really interesting. So I suppose the conversation we’re having here about this sort of problem of moving from a project management position to a more leadership role, it’s a challenge that we’ve identified and that we’ve been speaking to clients about who are struggling in this situation and have got people struggling in this situation, which I suppose brings us quite neatly on to what we’ve been looking at doing about it really. So why don’t you take us through kind of what Parallel they’ve been doing and what we’ve been looking at to kind of to tackle this challenge of making the jump.
[20:09]
Yeah, sure. So I think there’s almost two things at play here that have been going on at the same time. I think that Parallel have recognised in terms of the training landscape that there is, the qualification landscape for project managers that there is that there’s a bit of a gap. There’s a great set of courses, accreditation, certifications at an entry level. So for people that kind of, you know, it’s their first project there, you know, they need to learn about this.
[20:46]
They may be working on a project for the first time or managing a small project for the first time. There’s lots of good entry level courses. So, you know, we deliver the project fundamentals qualification. And there’s also a lot of really good kind of next step project management courses as well. So, you know, we’ve aligned with the Association for Project Management and their project management qualification, the PMQ, which gives a project manager that’s got some experience, a really broad look at all of the competencies.
[21:20]
You know, we cover 24 competencies on that course. Everything from some of the people side things through sustainability, through planning and scheduling, you know, everything that you’d expect to. But I think that people leave that course and they go back to their projects, but then they’ll put those skills into practice. Hopefully, they’ll get really strong at doing that and they’ll get the feedback from their organisation that they are doing a great job. And they start then moving up, as we discussed, they start then moving up into larger, more complex projects where there will be this tipping point where the skills that they learnt on the PMQ won’t be enough.
[22:02]
And that’s where the gap is. There isn’t anything really there that says, right, OK, so what are the skills and competencies that you need to be able to take you to that next level?
[22:14]
There’s the very sort of capstone at the top in terms of gaining your chartered status, which people may be aiming for, but that’s not really a training course. It’s about demonstrating your experience. So there’s this gap then, really supporting project managers. And I think that it’s important for Parallel. You know, our strap line is we’re with you all the way. We don’t want to just leave people at PMQ and say, right, OK, there we go. Off onto the biggest challenging projects of your of your career. And, you know, we’re kind of good luck.
[22:47]
And also, so that’s one aspect of it, that there’s we feel that there’s a gap there. The other aspect of it is that our clients feel that there’s a gap there as well. And we’ve had so many organisations, you know, far and far and wide in lots of different industries coming to a saying that our senior project managers, our project manager, are negotiating this point where they’ve become a good project manager, but they need to step up now in a more leadership role.
[23:18]
And what can you do Parallel to help them through through that?
[23:22]
So we have developed a programme that we’ll talk about now called Applied Project Leadership to fill that gap and to help project managers in that really exciting step in their careers. I think that the journey that you spoke about in the first part of your answer there is interesting in identifying where the gap is, because I think chartership and we work with loads of clients taking people through chartership applications. And it’s not to diminish the role that chartership plays in recognising those experienced competent project managers.
[23:53]
But I think you said it yourself. It’s a recognition and it’s a standard as opposed to helping people develop the skills. So it’s a fantastic tool at reflecting on what you’ve done and what skills you’ve got. But it doesn’t quite perhaps help people build that next set of skills. It doesn’t identify that there is this set of competencies that you needed to be a good project manager. But there’s almost a whole different set of skills and competencies you need to be a leader.
[24:16]
And I think that’s probably the gap we’re trying to plug there, isn’t it?
[24:19]
Absolutely. So we’ve got this programme Applied Project Leadership. We’re really pleased to be bringing it to market. We’ve got a first pilot running in January. That’s right. Starting mid-January. We’ve got quite a lot of clients who are already interested in it. What does this programme look like, Ruth?
[24:36]
How’s it going to be delivered?
[24:38]
What are delegates going to be doing when they come on the programme?
[24:40]
Yeah, OK. So I think you’ve used the word programme there because it’s not just a training course. It’s run over three and a half months, really for the opportunity for people to reflect on where they are, to learn new skills and competencies, to be able to apply those, to be able to put them into practice, to be able to reflect on what has happened, to be able to build a network with the cohort that they’re on, and to learn from each other, but also to learn from Ruth, some really experienced people in the discipline of project management and project leadership.
[25:23]
So we start off with kind of a leadership induction or launch week. We make sure that people are familiar with all of the steps in the programme. They understand all of the aspects of the programme, and we make sure that they are introduced to their cohort, because that is going to be central to their journey throughout the programme. So we make sure that we have got a really nice cohort feel. We want people to feel that is a network. We’ll be building up a community of people who have attended this programme, because I think that’s one important thing in thinking about my background in project management.
[26:07]
Because projects are temporary and you work across different areas of the business, you sometimes don’t necessarily feel that you have a community. You might have a community within your own organisation, but maybe not necessarily, maybe within industry. And so I think that’s one aspect of it. And I think that’s one of the elements that a lot of our clients have said to us as well, is that learning from each other and learning from other organisations and that peer network at this more senior level where people have got the experience and they’ve got the understanding and they will collaborate on processes and they will share experience on how other organisations are going about tackling these challenges.
[26:48]
And I think that’s part of this programme, isn’t it?
[26:50]
Not necessarily us just lecturing people on more best practices, but benefiting from the collaboration of working with peers.
[26:57]
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that project leadership lends itself to being transferable in that nature, because we’re not talking about the specifics or the technical aspects of drilling certain things or software development, whatever it may be. We’re very much talking here about leadership people, which is entirely transferable across different projects. And sometimes being able to share your thoughts, learnings, ideas with somebody who hasn’t really got much of an idea of the specifics of your project actually can be really helpful and you can get a very good perspective from them about that.
[27:48]
So that’s absolutely something that we’re aiming to achieve on the programme. Great. So we’ve kicked the programme off and people are starting to build this network. What happens then?
[28:00]
Yeah. So then the first thing is they’re going to gather some data. They’re going to ask some of their colleagues, some peers, some more junior, some more senior than them, to give them feedback on their leadership style. So there’ll kind of be some assessment, 360 assessments that they do. We’re going to also ask them to reflect on the way that they feel that they lead at the moment, identify elements that they want to develop. We’re also going to ask them if there’s a particular area of their project or their leadership that they want to develop.
[28:36]
So there could be, for example, a project manager who’s having a particularly difficult time with the suppliers and contractors on their project. It could be that there’s a new team that they’re taking over or the context of their project has changed because maybe there’s been a merge in the organisation that they work for. There could be a whole range of different things that they’re struggling with. So we ask them to identify kind of like a project that they’re going to use as a basis for putting into practice some of the activities that we’re going to be talking about.
[29:12]
So that’s kind of all done up front. And then we hit the learning areas of this. So we’ve broken it down into two phases. The first phase is called leading the project, kind of what we were alluding to earlier. So we spend three days together. It’s residential because we want people to be able to get out of their project environment and focus on this. We don’t want kind of the phone calls and the emails to be pinging, et cetera, and distracting.
[29:43]
We want them to really be able to be in this sort of cohort cocoon and focus on skills and competencies and really enjoy it. It should be engaging. It should be fun. We’re going to have a number of different instructors. We’re going to get a sort of a guest speaker as well to come along and talk about particular topics so that there’s a lot of good discussion and idea generation. And then we’ll park company for a few weeks. We’ll come back then a little bit later.
[30:13]
And the second phase will be leading the people. And that’s two days. And again, very similar offsite residential focus on that. And in between those phases, we’ll have activities that they take back to their project so that we can then discuss them on each of those areas. So that’s kind of the, I guess, the more formalised learning aspects of the programme. The programme is not accredited, so we’re lucky that we don’t have to worry about exams and people haven’t got to revise for exams because we’re a bit beyond the stage of exams at this level.
[30:46]
But we are quite keen, aren’t we, for this programme to have some element of long term benefit and people being able to really look at something in detail and maybe perhaps make a recommendation for an improvement. So what are we doing after we’ve done this teaching element?
[31:00]
Yeah, absolutely. I think that there’s two aspects to it. I think that I call it, we need to introduce some jeopardy because I think that otherwise it becomes too nice and safe and comfortable and people are just talking about, oh, yeah, you know, these things in very theoretical ways. And we don’t want that. You know, this is all about changing your behaviour, changing the way that you work, improving, transforming yourself. So we want there to be a bit of jeopardy.
[31:28]
And also we want to make sure that the organisations who are sending their project leaders on this programme are getting something out of it as well. That, you know, again, it’s not just, oh, you know, here we go. Here’s some skills development for you. There’s a return on the investment that they’re making in the individual. And so we’re bringing those things together. About six weeks after that second leading the people intervention, we’ll come back together for a day. And over that six weeks period, we’ll have expected people to have worked on whatever it was that they identified at the leadership launch and to provide feedback on that of, you know, what they’ve been doing.
[32:14]
How’s that worked?
[32:16]
What challenges have they faced?
[32:18]
What would they do differently?
[32:20]
And also to look ahead and say, right. Okay. And so what is my, what are my next steps as well into the future?
[32:25]
So we’re calling that impact to momentum because we want to see some impact within the kind of the three and a half months that we’ve been together as a cohort. But we don’t want them just to focus on that final day together and say, oh, right. Okay. I did this. And yeah, my team are much more motivated now and all of this is working wonderfully. We want to make sure that actually they maintain that momentum. They, this change becomes permanent and they also, you know, keep developing and keep working through this.
[32:56]
So to support them in that kind of six week period, we’re setting up action learning groups with the rest of the cohort. So they kind of, I guess there’s an element of accountability with their peers on the, in the cohort. There’s also an element of assistance and support because I’m sure that there will be plenty of project managers that sort of, I’ve hit a bit of a brick wall here. I’m not sure what to do next. And again, that peer learning aspect of that, and to keep the momentum up and to hear from others. They’ll also be able to get some one-to-one coaching as well from myself and members of the Parallel team.
[33:35]
But again, you know, if they have hit a bit of a brick wall and they’re questioning, I’m not sure how I’ve done this, whether this has worked, what should I do next, et cetera, they’re able to bring that to us. So they get that focus as well. And then, yeah, the final day is sharing that impact that they’ve made, sharing how they’re going to keep this up. We’re going to support them in that by, as I said, you know, kind of building this cohort community as well.
[34:04]
And hopefully they’ll have developed a really good network. Not just with the people in the cohort, but with people within Parallel, some of the experts that we’re getting in as well to talk to them so that, yeah, they feel that they’ve got that network in place to support them in the future steps in their career. But we don’t need to be shy about the fact that we’re not the only people in the market to have a leadership programme. There’s lots of universities that run multi-year modules on leadership.
[34:35]
And, you know, we’re not professing to be, you know, the first people to introduce this to market, but what makes ours different? Where’s our differentiator?
[34:44]
Yeah, I think that’s a really important thing to think about. One aspect is that there’s continuity with the Parallel. But, you know, as I said earlier, we’re with you all the way. We want to be with people all the way through their careers to take them on that journey from, you know, maybe graduate project manager to the next steps in their career and then supporting them as they move into leadership and also hopefully throughout that time period also helping them gain their chartered project professional status as well.
[35:20]
So I think we understand that career journey very well. I think another aspect of it is that we understand their role. And, you know, we are project professionals ourselves. We’re project managers. We’ve been in that position. We felt that moment where actually my technical project management skills aren’t serving me here. What more do I get?
[35:49]
What more do I need?
[35:52]
So we’re able to support people through that. And I think the other side of it is that there are some really fantastic programmes that are run by, you know, some of the leading business schools and universities, but I think that they require quite a significant investment of time effort. Also the financial cost of doing that over 18 months, two years. Now I’m not at all suggesting that, you know, we’ve got a quick fix here that we’re able to do what they’re doing in two years. We can do it in three months. Absolutely not.
[36:32]
But I think that we’re going to be able to influence that behaviour change, enable project managers, that thinking time, that reflection time to start moving in that direction, to take that step into leadership. And I think that the structure of the programme gives them the opportunity to try things out, to experiment and to get feedback on that. And then to reflect and then to do different, you know, I don’t see this as the end of the journey. I see this as just giving them a step up, a helpful hand into that next step, but they still need to keep reflecting, changing behaviours, using these skills. Even if you have gained your chartered status, CPD, Continuing Professional Development is a huge part of that.
[37:23]
So this is an element within that journey, but they do need to, you know, carry on within that. So I think that’s the importance of the community for me that we’re building as well. I think that is the niche for this programme really, isn’t it?
[37:36]
We’re not expecting people to commit, you know, 18 months, two years and multiple tens of thousands of pounds to this programme. It’s, you know, we’re able to really embed this in industry with, you know, there’s a lot of peer support. There’s a lot of people working on difficult complex projects that people are going to be learning from each other. And it’s not this massive long commitment. We’re just looking to help people make that next step and make that transition.
[38:01]
Yeah, absolutely. And I think by making it more accessible and also shorter in timeframe, hopefully that’s going to open it up to more people because I think, you know, as much as the 18 month, two year programmes, we’ll give people some, you know, tremendous experiences and learning points. Not every person in the organisation is going to be able to give that commitment. There’s probably quite, you know, a very few individuals within an organisation that would be able to get that focus. Hopefully we’ll be able to open this out to a few more people within organisations.
[38:41]
And I think that’s where we might get that kind of the critical mass within an organisation as well. Lots of project leaders have gone through this process. Actually, the organisation’s project leadership becomes better rather than just having one key individual that has really done this in depth. You know, there’s a little bit wider applicability and accessibility for this programme. And I think also, if you look carefully, there’s a clue in the name, isn’t there in applied project leadership.
[39:11]
This is one of the key focuses for our programme here, isn’t that we’re just teaching theory and where we’re just reading books and reciting, you know, the best theory. But as much as it is underpinned in that theory, what we’re focusing on here is how we apply that to the real world environment, how we help people apply these theories and these concepts and these ways of working. How do you actually apply that to day to day to what you’re actually doing?
[39:35]
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, that again is very central to the way that Parallel works as well. You know, we’re always thinking about how do we put this into practice? How do we apply this in the project environment in the workplace? And I think particularly when we’re talking about leading people, of course, you know, you’re only in control of one half of that equation, i.e. yourself as the project leader, that what your followers may do and may choose to do is to a greater extent, sort of outside of your control. And so, you know, things might not turn out the way that you expected them to. And being able to really have that practical focus and saying, well, okay, you know, yes, let’s try this, but, and reflecting and learning and associating that then with changing your behaviour, I think is going to be really important because, you know, there’s many different ways that people react to certain things that people get motivated, that people work in different ways, the challenges that are faced as there are people and project teams. So, you know, thinking about the application of it is particularly important.
[41:02]
So one of the questions we get asked very often when we’re talking about training courses is about the target audience. Well, who’s the right target audience for this? I think sort of our discussion over the last half an hour or so has probably helped people identify quite nicely, you know, what the target audience for this is. We’re looking at those people trying to make the next step from project management to leadership positions. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think you would need to have quite a few years experience of working on this and I think this could be something that supports your transition into that next level or it could be that you’ve been discussing, you know, with your managers in the organisation that actually you feel that you need some different levels of skills and competencies. So maybe you’re already operating at that level but I think, actually, you know, I need to develop in this area of kind of the human side of management and leadership or maybe, you know, I need to let go of some of those behaviours that have served me well in the past to really step into this role. So, you know, this is not about teaching the theory of, you know, what is a risk and, you know, how do you use scheduling techniques. It’s not about that technical project management side of things. It’s about building culture. It’s about managing and working with people, delivering through people. It’s about being more strategic, being more commercial. It’s also about developing confidence without ego as well, managing stakeholder expectations, challenging conversations, all of those kind of things. So I hope I’m giving an idea here that this isn’t sort of, I did my PMQ last week, I’m ready to go on this. It’s for people that have got that experience but they feel that they just want some assistance, some support to unlock the next step in their development.
[43:11]
Yeah. So what does the sort of application selection process look like and what should people do if they’re interested?
[43:18]
That’s important as well because I think if you are going to, even though we said this is a shorter programme, there’s still a commitment here. We still need to make sure that people are getting the value from this programme and a lot of that value is about the cohort that they’re part of. So we need to make sure that the people are going on this for the right reasons and have got the right objectives for going on the courses as well. So we’ll be asking some questions about what your objectives are, where you see some of the skills development that are lying in there.
[43:58]
It won’t be particularly onerous because we don’t want to put people off applying. It’s certainly not a mini chartership application or anything like that but it’s just about making sure that we build the right cohort and so just telling us a little bit about your experience and what it is that you’re hoping to achieve. We’ll be able to assess whether this is the right programme for you to go on and then hopefully when you meet your cohort you do very much have a cohort of peers that are in similar positions to yourself and have got similar aims and objectives.
[44:37]
I think that last bit that you said is really important. It’s Parallel’s responsibility, isn’t it, to ensure that everybody on the cohort is in the same position and like-minded so that we really get that peer network out of it and that people can learn from each other. And what should people do if they’re interested then?
[44:55]
We are going to have information on the Parallel website so that’s www.parallelprojecttraining.com but certainly you can find out some information on there. And then I’d say probably this is a discussion. I think you need to make sure that this is the right programme for you. We need to answer any questions that you’ve got about what’s involved, how that works, all of the mechanics of the programme. And so that’s probably best done through a discussion. So I would say that contact Parallel we would be delighted to discuss that with you. We’re going to be running the programmes. As we said, we’re launching this, the pilot programme starts mid-January but we’re hoping to run this several times throughout the year. So if the first programme’s not quite right for you then there may be subsequent dates that suit you.
[45:54]
So get in touch with us. On our website you can find our phone numbers or you can email [email address unclear — check audio at approximately 45:54] and somebody will be very happy to discuss this in more detail with you and give you all the information you need to decide whether or not this is the right thing for your career development.
[46:15]
Yeah, awesome. That’s really good. Well, that’s been a really good discussion. Thank you, Ruth. And it’s great to finally share this exciting project that Parallel has been working on. I think I’d speak for both of us when I say we’re really excited to get it launched in January and hopefully see the benefits of what you’ve been working on really. If today’s conversation has struck a chord and you would like to find out more about the Applied Project Leadership Programme, please do get in touch with us, as Ruth says, through our website, through email, give us a call on [phone number unclear — check audio at approximately 46:30] or feel free to reach out to any of the team on LinkedIn as well and they’ll be more than happy to have a chat with you about it. So it just remains for me to say thanks, Ruth, for joining me today. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. And thanks for listening. Goodbye.
