Assessing a training programme
Posted by Elizabeth
If you have been following my series on project management competency models this month, you’ll know that planning the programme to address any gaps in performance is a large piece of work. As with any project, you need to make sure it is closed down effectively and that the benefits are realised. So add some tasks to your schedule in Seavus Project Planner or whatever you use to build in an evaluation at the end. This will give you the opportunity to assess whether or not your training programme – and the associated mentoring, coaching, stretch assignments and so on – have been worth the effort.
Why do we want to assess this? Well, there isn’t much point investing in training and development unless you are going to receive some benefit from the investment. Assessment gives you the chance to see whether people are applying what they have learned. You’ll be able to see if they are using their new skills in their projects and whether their managers are noticing improvements. Of course, the objectives of every development programme are going to be different. Perhaps you are using training to motivate or incentivise staff, in which case maybe it doesn’t matter much to you whether they apply what they have learned in the workplace. However, let’s assume that you do want to assess whether training has been effective. To do this, you can use Kirkpatrick’s training effectiveness model.
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5 steps to a project manager competency framework (part 2)
Posted by Elizabeth
Recently I attended a webinar hosted by J. LeRoy Ward from ESI on the role of competency frameworks in developing project managers and how you can build your own competency model for your company. He presented a five-step approach:
- Define the categories of projects that the organisation is working on.
- Identify competencies for project managers.
- Assess your project managers against these competencies.
- Identify what you need to do to get people to where they need to be.
- Execute well, monitor how it is going and measure the results.
Last week I looked at the first two of these points, and today I will cover the final three. So let’s start with:
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Is PMP Helping Your Job Hunt?
Posted by Brad Egeland
Whether you’re employed right now, independently consulting, or unemployed, we’re all really looking for a job, right? No job is safe in this economy so if you’re employed you can’t afford to raise any flags for fear you could lose the job you have. But we’re all looking just in case. Or looking for our next gig. And even if you’re independent, you’d still probably take a W2 position – especially in this uncertain economy – if the right option presented itself to you, right?
So, here’s my question. For those of you who have the PMP certification after your name… are you finding that it is helping your job hunt? I actually had one recent comment to one of my articles from a reader who stated that the PMP designation actually hurt his job hunt. He started getting interviews based solely on the PMP certification (insert my comment here about lazy HR reps) only to have the interview end early when they found out that he had very little experience. Sometimes that hadn’t even bothered to check out his actual PM experience – they only included him in the interview process because he was PMP certified.
5 steps to a project manager competency framework (part 1)
Posted by Elizabeth
Two weeks ago I attended a webinar hosted by ESI on the role of competency frameworks in developing project managers and how you can build your own competency model for your company. You can read my post about what competencies are and why having a framework is a good idea here. In this post I am going to explain J. LeRoy Ward’s five steps to setting up a competency framework in your organisation, based on my notes from that webinar.
He presented a five-step approach:
- Define the categories of projects that the organisation is working on.
- Identify competencies for project managers.
- Assess your project managers against these competencies.
- Identify what you need to do to get people to where they need to be.
- Execute well, monitor how it is going and measure the results.
Let’s take each of those in turn. Today I’ll be looking at the first two of those steps, and next week I’ll cover the final three. That should give you time to get started on implementing these first steps!
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Project management competencies: creating a framework
Posted by Elizabeth
Last week I attended a webinar on development project management competency frameworks, hosted by ESI. J. LeRoy Ward is an experienced and interesting speaker so I thought I would share some of the highlights from the webinar.
What is ‘competency’
“There is not one universally accepted definition of competency,” said Ward. ESI use Raymond A. Noe’s definition of competency, which is: ‘areas of personal capability that enable employees to successfully perform their jobs by achieving outcomes or accomplishing tasks.’ In essence, being competent is not just about having the knowledge but also about being able to apply this in real life to get things done effectively.
A competency framework is a model that sets out what competencies are required in your organisation to be an effective project manager.
