Peer to Peer - Project Me

The upheaval of the past two years has given us pause for thought, so we asked project professionals how they plan to change, develop and improve themselves to become even better in this comeback year.

Life is about learning - Reshika Gordon‑Tamang, P3M consultant, DAS

The past two years have been tough for everyone, but one thing that has brought positivity to my life is mentoring. My take on how to improve your project management career skills this year would be to find a mentor or become one. What skills (not just technical) can you gain from a mentor or being a mentor to someone early in their career? Life is all about learning and broadening your knowledge.

Bring your skills to a school - James Pearce, portfolio analyst, Rolls‑Royce

Reflecting on 2021, a key experience that enabled me to accelerate my project management career skills was taking on a school governor role. Complementing the theoretical and experiential development opportunities available in my job at Rolls‑Royce, the voluntary role unlocks a different, complex environment in which to practise key project management skills. Awareness of how to communicate and engage with different people is essential in project environments. This has been a useful and transferable skill in school board meetings, along with exercising financial and risk management. Being part of a governing board has given me critical thinking skills, enabling me to ask the right questions when presented with information – something that helps me when presenting my own work in the workplace, with a better understanding of how I should communicate information. Connecting project management with school governance offers personal and professional development potential while benefiting the operation of schools – enabling the education of the project managers of the future.

Contribute as a volunteer - Peter Pepper, senior delivery manager, Methods

My focus is to continue my personal development by volunteering as a mentor and a guest speaker for APM. The APM volunteering sessions enable all participants to share knowledge and experiences from a variety of business sectors and industries. Alongside this, I will continue with my APM training and aim to pass the next level of certification.

Research, be positive and prepare - Charlotte Craig, IT project manager, Frontier Agriculture

Having hit my 10-year milestone as a project manager, here are my four goals this year to improve my career skills:

• Use free resources to learn. The APM website has an incredible breadth of resources available to project professionals.
• Complete my SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and identify actions for development.
• Positive mindset. Always assume ‘positive intent’ – a fundamental of Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which is worth a read!
• Schedule time to ‘think and be’. Allow myself time to prepare and reset to turn up to meetings as the best version of myself.
  
  

Keep asking: so what? - Jerome Evans, group programme director, Meggitt

You have a risk register, a charter, a project management plan and project reviews. Now ask yourself: so what? Every successful project and project manager has the above elements (as do most unsuccessful ones). They are important, but do not guarantee success. It’s what you do with them that matters. As you reflect in 2022, look in the mirror and ask yourself: so what?

Understand thinking patterns - Mark Reeson, director, M R Project Solutions

This year, after such a devastating 18 months, I have decided to look at project management through a new lens. Having discovered some research that has been carried out in the US into neural behaviours, I am interested to discover how they have aligned this to project management and how our brain works to make the right decisions. By understanding this and reading through the material on the NeuralPlan website, I am hoping this will help me understand the true impact of the pandemic on how we think and how this can help me become a more effective project manager. By making the connection between thinking patterns and project management skills and techniques, I hope this will lead to new roles and a broadening of my horizons.

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU FROM THE SPRING 2022 ISSUE OF PROJECT JOURNAL, WHICH IS FREE FOR APM MEMBERS.