Tomorrow’s Leaders – key snippets

Project Management today is seen as a development route to senior positions. So how do you develop tomorrow’s project management leaders?
I spent Wednesday last week at Merrill Lynch at a conference looking at just that.

Here are some of the snippets I heard:

BAE Systems have a postgraduate certificate. This really focuses on understanding oneself and others before the core Project Management content. This is followed by a project at work to apply it all. Senior leaders are developed by coaching rather than courses. There were lots of questions around how to measure intangibles!

Geoff Reiss and Martin Price showed how Project Management has been seen to be all rules and process (eg PRINCE2 and PMBOK). However, great project managers are more than this. It is a bit like David Beckham – who doesn’t just know the rules but is also a brilliant team player.
Geoff Reiss had a wonderful explanation of how process doesn’t always help the project manager. He likened process to a spotlight on a ballet dancer – it helps everyone else to see her but doesn’t help her to dance any better… Process is in fact the lowest common denominator. Martin Price of EngagementWorks then provided the answer… which I’ll elaborate in a future e-newsletter.