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The 15-minute conference: What you may have missed at APM’s Change Changes event · Project Podcast

• 0:08
  Welcome to the APM Podcast, brought to you by The Chartered
• 0:11
  Body for the project profession. My name is Emma De Vita, and I'm
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  the editor of APM's Quarterly Journal, Project and Your host.
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  In June, APM held its annual conference in Birmingham under
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  the heading of Change Changes. The event explored how the
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  project profession must adapt to the changing nature of change
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  itself in a world of increasing uncertainty and complexity.
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  It emphasised the enormous contribution that projects can
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  and do make to forging a cleaner, safer, more prosperous
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  and more inclusive society. The day kicked off with an
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  inspiring talk from Carmel McConnell, founder of Magic
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  Breakfast and longtime project professional, about the
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  importance of having purpose in your work and how projects
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  should be used to bring about some good in society and the
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  environment. Her presentation set the tone of
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  the day, and there followed honest and thoughtful
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  conversations about how project delivery can be improved and how
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  project professionals can gain a sense of real fulfilment from
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  their work. The place was buzzing with new
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  ideas and shared experience, and this podcast We've compiled some
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  of the key insights that emerge from the first stream of
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  sessions at the conference, which will focus on the
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  transformative impacts that projects can have both on
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  individual lives as well as economic, social and physical
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  landscapes. So listen on to hear highlights,
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  including what happens when a project needs a reset, the cost
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  of social value projects, and the future of professional
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  bodies in a rapidly changing world.
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  In our first clip, we hear from Joe Stanford.
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  Joe is a project professional who has spent 20 years working
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  in the healthcare sector and is currently CEO of the Healthcare
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  Projects in Change Association. She appeared on a panel that
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  considered the challenge of measuring social benefits.
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  So there are ways to measure social benefits and if you look
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  at the management of portfolios, it talks about the social return
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  on investment and how you kind of calculate some of that.
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  The challenge is more about the practical application of it.
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  So having worked on projects where they've had to have, you
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  know, impact assessments that look at the long term benefits
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  of changes to things like legislation and regulations,
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  part of that calculation is looking at translating health
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  outcomes and the increased improvement in health or the
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  reduction in the use of services because people are being
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  treated. Poster there are ways of
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  measuring it and there's there's tools and and guidance out there
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  so. So there there are definitely
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  the tools for doing that. The the problem often is how you
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  then review and evaluate it and certainly the Department of
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  Health and Social Care hasn't really got to the point where
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  it's able to then evidence how well it's delivered.
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  I once had a a chat with the chief economist at DHS who used
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  to sign off all of the impact assessments and used to do all
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  of the calculations of them and that was at the start of the
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  project to say you know what is it we're going to achieve.
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  And I said to him, How many of these did the you then?
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  Evaluate to measure whether or not what was in the impact
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  assessment was actually achieved in practise and he said none
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  ever. So part of the problem and and
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  we we kind of discussing this sort of earlier is that where
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  you have a very much focus on say one year budgets or
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  three-year rounds or you've got a focus on delivery but not
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  outcomes And your measures are well the business plan for this
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  year is we're going to deliver this, this, this and this and
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  you go and So what where is the measure of the outcome being?
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  Reviewed and achieved to say not just are we delivering stuff,
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  but what are we measuring in terms of the benefits.
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  And that's an organisational portfolio issue.
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  It's the it's where the the business plan should be
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  translated into outcome measures that say whether or not we are
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  achieving it. And I think there's a real gap
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  here between the project profession that might be looking
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  at, well, with this project we're going to achieve these
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  outcomes, but we don't achieve them.
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  The business achieves them. Who's working with the
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  operational delivery teams to say and how are you reviewing
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  and monitoring and measuring the outcomes of the changes that are
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  being made? I think there's a big piece of
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  work to do for the project profession and the sort of
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  business and upside of things to work together on that as a more
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  holistic approach. I think the cross fertilisation
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  and and working between professions to deliver those
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  outcomes and measure them is the gap that we need to work on
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  collectively. Our second clip is taken from
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  the panel session on Remapping for Success, which explored why
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  it is incumbent on project professionals to ensure that
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  projects are properly set up and resourced so they can achieve
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  vital social outcomes. The panel was asked whether, in
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  their view, organisations are prepared to introduce social
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  value benefits and projects if they increase the upfront costs.
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  So let's hear the views of all three panellists, Gillian McGee
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  of AstraZeneca, Andrew Morgan of HMRC and Mike Hudson of the
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  National Trust. So I I, I run some of the
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  governance for our portfolio of projects and and through the
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  various gateways that we have for approvals we actively now
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  factor that in and yes sometimes it does increase the cost of
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  delivery. But you know I I I don't I I I
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  honestly don't see that we have a choice because we can't when
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  when we're I'm I'm particularly thinking about some of the
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  global sustainability challenges around carbon efficiency and so
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  on. I I I just don't think it's
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  responsible for us to be sponsoring projects where we're
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  not taking an opportunity to make that better.
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  I think we've building on what you're saying, I I think we've
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  been used to producing cost estimates.
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  But again talking with a number of attendees today, an area that
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  often concerns us more is perhaps estimates of the pounds
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  benefit and in the social value arena sometimes that can be
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  really difficult to put real pounds against.
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  Often it's seen more as intangible benefits.
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  And so I think there are some real opportunities there in
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  terms of growing our capability for improving benefit estimation
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  and of course that then came to balances the view in terms of
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  the. Effective inflation on cost and
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  so on and so forth because potentially we we kind of see
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  that affecting the benefit side as well.
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  Yeah, I mean, I I guess for us they're so caught to what we do
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  that and that you're absolutely right.
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  There will be trade-offs in terms of what what is ultimately
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  affordable, but it may work the other way.
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  It may be that. Projects that can't start to
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  demonstrate social benefit or that they're the ones that ended
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  up getting, you know, deprioritised and it's the ones
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  with social benefit included that that do.
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  I mean, I think there is a challenge around how we, how we
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  measure, but yeah, so I don't personally see them getting.
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  Crowded out. The next clip is taken from a
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  session entitled Calling for a Reset in Response to Change,
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  which looked at when it is necessary to reset a project or
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  programme that has strayed off course, and how to make that
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  happen. Here is Jack Hewitt, an
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  associate and programme and project management at global
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  built environment consultancy firm Arab, discussing the role
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  of the project manager in identifying the need for reset.
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  You almost think about the different types of roles that
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  people in a project team or a programme team would play at the
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  point of a reset. And I think if I were to look at
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  it through that lens the the first person that I'd come to, I
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  mean fundamentally you're not going to achieve a reset without
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  a project manager putting their hand up and saying something
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  needs to happen here. We're at risk of of not
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  achieving our stated objectives, outcomes, benefits, whatever it
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  may be. But I think that that's almost
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  take that as a given and I think probably the the next personal
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  role with a particular skill set that's valuable.
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  There is the sponsor for that project and that might be a
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  senior responsible officer in some palaces.
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  It might be a project sponsor in other certainly in my
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  infrastructure. World project sponsor is the the
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  one that always comes through strongly.
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  But having an advocate there that's not part of the project
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  delivery team but understands the context and help us help
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  develop the business case in the first instance and knows what
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  the targets of the project are. Having them embedded in that
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  kind of progressive assurance type position throughout the
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  life cycle of the project means that number one, they can be
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  really astute in identifying any deviations that might be
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  beginning to occur on the project but also be they have
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  that further reach within the the client organisation or your
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  own organisation whichever part of the project that you come
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  from. But having the reach and the
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  resources and the knowledge and experience of the.
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  Answer is really valuable in terms of getting the message out
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  there as to something needs to change here and I think finally
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  perhaps a little bit of a left field one, but one that
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  certainly to me is really important is someone.
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  They don't have to be a dedicated benefits management
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  professional, but someone who understands that there are
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  broader, particularly in this stream for today's event, social
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  benefits, for example, social value benefits that are involved
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  in projects. Having someone that is tracking,
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  monitoring and doing that across the business and drops into
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  particular projects with a with a strong understanding of them.
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  They can be crucial in terms of helping to spot the risks of of
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  of needing a reset and then to help manage the process of
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  delivering them to. A final clip comes from a panel
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  session that asks the question, where do we go from here?
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  It explored where the project profession needs to be in the
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  next five years and how it needs to evolve.
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  Let's hear from Professor Adam Bodison, Chief Executive of APM,
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  and Lucian Dragon, Managing Director for Europe at PMI,
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  discussing the risks and opportunities facing
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  professional bodies. For me, bringing a professional
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  body, one of the things I'm often kind of asking myself is
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  what's the role of a professional body now compared
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  to what it was 20 years ago and what it might be in 20 years
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  time from now. And is it, will it be different
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  or will it be the same? It will obviously be different.
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  So we've got a future proof, the professional body to be there to
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  support the profession. And and one of the changes, I
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  think, again, kind of from a risk perspective is that 20
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  years ago professional bodies were all about somebody coming
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  and joining the professional bodies as students, then
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  becoming an associate member, then becoming a full member,
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  then becoming a fellow and so on.
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  And it was quite a vertical route through our membership
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  grades and we see this in every profession.
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  But that's changing. We see it in the wider world of
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  work outside of the profession. People now are quite happy to
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  join an organisation for a job and knowing at the outset I'm
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  gonna do this job for three years or five years and then I'm
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  gonna go and do something different.
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  So there's this. And we see that as a horizontal
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  movement now, back and forward through the different levels of
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  membership and so on. There's a risk there, but
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  there's also an opportunity. So the risk is that you end up
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  potentially losing people and the edges of the profession
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  become even more fuzzy than they are now because people come in
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  and out of them. But the opportunity is, I always
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  say, if you've ever been in a profession, even for a short
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  time, it's a bit like the Hotel California you can check out,
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  but you can never leave. So I hope that these people that
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  come through the profession take that knowledge of the profession
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  and tackle some of the misconceptions that exist about
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  what it is and what it isn't, and share that with the wider
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  workforce and particularly with leaders who who some of whom I
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  think have a fundamental misunderstanding about what
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  project management and project professional broadly actually
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  is. Well to add to that the the
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  point you just make around you know the the awareness basically
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  missing right with the individuals.
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  I think I wanna go back to the whole topic about the the talent
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  gap right. We we mentioned there's there's
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  massive amount of people that we need to bring to the profession
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  to solve for the challenges that are upon us.
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  And I think that is a role of an association as well to make
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  people and organisation and decision makers aware of the
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  relevance of the profession and how they can create an
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  environment in in in which the the professionals can actually
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  strive. Right.
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  And we we start thinking a lot about you know how do we bring
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  new people to the profession which isn't known to crazy much
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  and which doesn't seem to be very attractive.
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  A lot of people see project management more as a.
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  You know it's all about processes and and spreadsheets
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  and risk management and it doesn't come across very
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  attractive to, you know, young generations, right.
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  So this is where we want to focus as as organisations like
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  APM and PMI to bring new people to the to the profession
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  showcase that working on projects actually impacts, you
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  know, large scale challenges, solves these challenges, impact
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  society. But how do we bring these young
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  people in and also think about other audience that not
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  necessarily are at our forefront now, people that want to change
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  career, right, People that have been kind of doing project
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  management in an accidental manner.
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  How do we make them aware that this is actually really a
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  profession that they can really get good?
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  That and kind of grow in in that in that field.
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  How do we help people who had took a break right back to the
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  work space. How do we help them to reenter
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  the workspace and and one particular demographic group
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  maybe that I would like to highlight here are our women.
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  Quite frankly we we, I mean I'm actually very pleased to see
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  that many you know women in the audience here today.
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  But I still think globally that's what we see when we ask
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  our our global community. We do see a massive gap still in
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  the gender representation in the profession. 2 third of global
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  project management roles today are done by mail which isn't a
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  problem right. But I think where, where we kind
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  of want to kind of push a little bit.
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  More for acceptance and diversity really is around
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  bringing women to the to the workforce and we also found in
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  that survey that we did with the global community that women seem
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  to be a little bit stronger naturally in the soft skill side
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  of things. So what you refer to as the
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  human side like things we need to focus on when technology
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  takes over the process pieces maybe women seem to have what we
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  found a bit of an advantage there naturally.
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  And another interesting factor maybe to share is when we
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  surveyed the people that are in project management, male and
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  female, we found out that the gender gap actually gets much
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  smaller when when we talked about, you know, who has a
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  leadership role in project. Management for men, that was
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  like 2023% of these people in projects are in a leadership
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  role and for women that's 20%. So that's really a bit of a
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  smaller gap there, which is kind of indicating a little bit that
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  there is an advantage for bringing women to the profession
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  because they progress a little faster into leadership roles and
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  therefore are a very good match to the profession.
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  We also found in that survey, if I can share that in addition,
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  that women have a natural tendency to more easily open up
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  to newer technologies. Maybe the adoption of AI and all
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  of that is something that would drive a little bit differently
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  and they are usually also more open to new ways of working.
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  Seems to be something we found out on a global.
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  Survey that we did. So yeah, kind of going back to
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  what the role here is for us, it really is to identify that
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  massive gap that there is and come up with ideas of how we
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  bring new people to a profession which needs to be known more,
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  quite frankly. That concludes our WRU of the
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  Change Changes Conference. Next year's conference will be
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  returning to the Midlands on the 5th and 6th of June 2024.
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  To register your interest in the event, visit apm.org.uk/APM Dash
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  Conference slash 2024. APM runs more than 200 events
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  every year, ranging from webinars and award ceremonies to
• 15:44
  day long conferences. You can find out more at APM
• 15:49
  Events. That's It from us for this
• 15:51
  episode. If you enjoyed it, don't forget
• 15:53
  to subscribe or leave us a review.
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  Thanks for listening.