Approach and competency frameworks

More and more public sector organisations are trying to improve their performance by developing their own skills and capabilities in programme and project management. This is leading to a focus on the deployment of their own approach, life-cycle and standards, and the development of programme and project management (PPM) competency for all relevant staff.

• Ensure the PPM approach is robust, clear and comprehensive and adaptable to all sizes and types of project, without being bureaucratic. Use the lessons learnt from OGC, NAO and others.
• Use clear, consistent and regular communication with all staff involved - essential if you are to win the hearts and minds of your staff.
• Embrace all stake-holder groups, such as Procurement and Human Resources. These groups will want to be engaged in the project and help it succeed - becoming important allies for the PPM approach.
• Deploy one-to-one engagement with those people responsible for major projects and programmes. This will gain their buy-in to the approach and build up a core of allies who can help to spread the PPM message.
• Obtain value and influence by establishing a "PPM community" which can champion the value of the PPM approach and help local or less experienced project managers to deploy it successfully.
• Be clear on what you are implementing - a good PPM framework addresses both behavioural and technical competencies, and is phrased in terms of what the individuals "are" rather than what they "do".
• Keep the framework relevant - it must be thorough enough to cover all the requirements but small enough to be manageable. Focusing on some competencies will be more effective than identifying them all and leaving people confused as to where the emphasis lies.
• Future-proof your framework - not only must it encourage creativity and innovative approaches, but it must consider the skills required for the future rather than just those skills that have worked in the past.
• Don't treat the framework as a once-a-year appraisal tool - behavioural change is a gradual process that must be worked on continually, not crammed in when appraisals are due.