Gaining an understanding of what you should be doing to deliver successful projects, and actually applying it are two very different things.
We see it over and over again! Organisations send their staff on project management training and expect them to come back and deliver successful projects. ‘They’ve been trained, even gained a qualification, so why aren’t we seeing results?’
Gaining an understanding of what you should be doing to deliver successful projects, and actually applying it are two very different things. No amount of training can replace the need for a supportive project management infrastructure.
Without genuine support from sponsors, project managers are fighting a losing battle. Throwing money at training project managers is not the answer. Sponsors have to take responsibility and get involved. Spending some of that training budget on educating sponsors would achieve far greater results.
A set of templates does not constitute a project management framework. Yes, of course standardisng documentation helps, but it is often tailored beyond recognition, because it was unusable in the first place, and no longer fulfills the intended purpose.
Understanding purpose, why something is good project management practice rather than just what is good practice, leads to wider acceptance. Training can achieve this, but gaining acceptance is only the first step. Making it possible to implement, and measure its effectiveness, requires commitment to improving how we operate. Without commitment to improving the ‘how’, project managers will return from their training a Monday morning and continue to do what they did before.
About Emma Jones
Emma Jones is the Praxis Framework™ Chief Examiner and was previously a PRINCE2 Chief Examiner for five years. She established one of the initial Training Organisations specialising in PRINCE2 and has now worked with APMG International developing courses and qualifications for 16 years.
