Engaging the c-suite: thought leadership from the APM Fellows Forum

The relationship between project professionals and an organisation’s senior leadership – and the impact this has on project success – was among the points discussed at the latest Association for Project Management (APM) Fellows Forum.

The event, held at the Institute of Directors in central London, focused on the theme of engaging the c-suite. It was attended by some of APM’s most senior members. The agenda included discussion points on project leadership, governance and future opportunities. APM’s Chief Executive, Professor Adam Boddison, and President Sue Kershaw also joined, sharing insights on APM’s new strategy and its work to further the profession’s understanding of the relationship between the c-suite and project, programme and portfolio professionals.

Selected highlights from the forum are below.

Martin Samphire, owner and Managing Director of specialist consultancy 3pmxl Ltd and Chairman of the APM Specific Interest Group (SIG) on Governance, presented an overview of the SIG’s key work and findings around engaging the c-suite.

“We know there are lots of projects that have gone wrong. In fact, over 70% fail to achieve their objectives, according to some sources.

“In everything I read, it’s always about lack of leadership and governance. It’s very rarely about the process. In the APM Governance SIG, we’ve been looking at how to improve that and our findings point to the context setters; the Chief Executive and the c-suite; not project managers.

“If you look at all the reports of failed projects, there’s always something in there about the board not setting up the right environment, not having a supportive culture, etc.”

What should the c-suite care about?

“Does the c-suite understand the role of the sponsor, the project lead or the senior responsible owner? Do they care? Do they motivate and hold sponsors to account? Do they measure success? Do they event know what success means for a project, and do they create a culture that allows projects and individuals to perform well? Or are they constantly de-motivating and disempowering people?

“The thing to remember is that governance and the c-suite are in charge of the context and they have a lot to offer.”

Tim Banfield, Associate Director of Marlowe Consulting and Chair of APM's Projecting the Future group, delivered a presentation titled ‘Views from the C-Suite’.

“If you start looking at where our profession has come from – people like Henry Ford – it was all about efficiency. And it worked. The origins of much of modern project management sit within that. An awful lot of our thinking has come from an engineering background.

“Then we hit the 21^st century and we all started hearing about productivity problems. The internet came along and what should have been an engine for growth was found to be failing. In the past 20 years, the scale of churn in organisations who don’t adapt has been massive.

“Regardless of industry, the expectation in most companies is that at least 60% of their time will be spent on driving, planning and delivering projects. We’re now in a project economy. It’s not all infrastructure projects; the things we would call a project have grown exponentially.

Massive opportunity to drive change

“The government’s major project portfolio currently contains 184 projects worth more than £500bn, delivering benefits that are monetised of £800bn. So we’ve got massive opportunities to drive change and drive improvement. However, the track record on this isn’t brilliant. An APM survey showed that 67% of business owners whose organisation have increased project working methods do not also have processes in place that allow them to monitor projects as they’re ongoing.

“Organisations have to be efficient and effective in what they do. The c-suite own the organisation – they make the decisions and provide the money.

“The big shift isn’t that the project achieves its original vision. It’s whether the outcome matches the owner’s needs. In a rapidly changing world. If we don’t provide what’s needed, we haven’t succeeded. That’s the challenge of change. If that’s the case, owner capability is as important as project and change capability. There’s an opportunity for us to take a huge step forward and we’ll do it by working with owners; with the c-suite.”

 

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