Assessing Project Management Capabilities

Separating the best from the rest!

Are you involved in evaluating project management talent for your organization? If the answer is yes, then you are sure to have grappled with the problem of outlining the ingredients that go into determining that a project manager is indeed capable, competent and a professional; and then going a step further, taking a call on which project managers are the cream of the lot!

Across the industry, many others are in the same boat. So, we decided to talk to a number of CxOs, portfolio managers and HR professionals from around the world, to get a handle on what exactly goes into choosing the right project managers. While certification requirements have become de rigour, and assessment of core PM competencies is critical, most of our respondents agree that these alone only take you halfway to your objective. Therefore, our focus while writing this article was more on the qualitative indicators as opposed to developing a rigorous assessment model.

What emerged was an illuminating Competence Checklist that goes a long way into ensuring that evaluation errors are minimized and capability recognized. And then there are those traits that the select few possess to scale the summit of project management excellence and be pronounced as The Best.

The Competence Checklist

Here is a list of the 12 most agreed-upon qualitative aspects and also sample evaluation strategies, which will help you to assess a prospective project manager’s competence on each aspect. Please note that these are in no particular order but that each of these has been recognized by industry insiders are being crucial to selecting the right person for a project management role.

1. Effective communication skills
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask the candidate to explain some aspect of previous work so that you get a better understanding
This will give you a flavour of her ability to communicate and explain complex subjects in lucid manner

2. An understanding of project management lingo
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about the most important project she has managed and how she went about it
This will provide you with the candidate’s comfort with PM language and slang (such as Change Requests, Charter, EVA, etc.)

3. Ability to take challenges head-on and come through successfully
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about how the candidate applied her experience to pull a project out of trouble
The answer should give you the necessary confidence to judge whether the necessary experience exists. A little probing can also bring out the depth of the candidate’s involvement.

4. Ability to deliver on desired outcomes
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Talk to stakeholders who had a major stake in the candidate’s past projects
This is a form of reference checking, but more specific.

5. Self-learning propensity

Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about learning from failed/ troubled projects
This will give you an insight into the candidate’s ability to recognize and learn from mistakes and also to accept and use feedback to improve

6. Confidence to Lead
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about specific project and how she led her team and managed stakeholder relationships (internal and external) to achieve the results
This will give you an insight into the candidate’s confidence, role clarity, leadership style, ability to motivate and manage conflicts and stakeholder expectation management

7. Customer Centricity
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about her experiences with customers and the problems she may have faced in interacting with them
This will give you an insight into the candidate’s focus (or lack of focus) on customer requirements and feedback.

8. Ability to take calculated risks
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about a particular instance of how she handled a situation where there were potential time and/ or cost overruns

9. Ability to Innovate
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about specific instances of a long term project where a change of approach during the execution led to better results over time

10. Productivity Focus
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask the PM for previous project plans, scope and planning reports, Gate Review presentations, etc.

11. Ability to align to organizational/ project contexts
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask the candidate about his experience with different types of projects and elaborate on the unique aspects

This should give you an understanding of how she adapts to the context in which he/she has to deliver (organization, environment, technology, industry).

12. Ability to get the ‘right decisions’ from stakeholders
Sample Evaluation Strategy
Ask about a specific situation where the candidate used the power of information to elicit the right decision from stakeholders on a contentious issue

The Best

Here are the six unique traits that differentiate the best from the rest (Source: Andy Crowe, Alpha Project Managers). These are traits of project managers who have been rated “The Best” within their organizations and peer groups.

1. They just love their jobs as a PM

Indicator: They view their jobs as a career and seek education and development opportunities on their own

2. They believe that they have more authority than their counterparts. Even if something is not within their sphere of responsibility, they seek to influence the outcome without formal authority. As Tom Peters aptly puts it “Nobody gives you power, you just take it.”

Indicator: They believe and value their role as a PM and know as well as demonstrate that their role is critical to success

3. They are not overwhelmed by multiple tasks, and have a mechanism to maintain their focus and to prioritize their work and day

Indicator: They receive fewer project emails that their counterparts and not glued to their PDAs during meetings.  Also they log less time spent in project meetings.

4. They accurately handle their communication effectiveness

Indicator: They probe communication expectation of stakeholders, articulate and summarize their understanding and validate it with the stakeholders either verbally or in writing.  They adhere to their communication schedule stringently.

5. They balance the relationship and conflicts effectively

Indicator: They build informal relationships and networks and separate the person from the problem when a conflict arises. They also confront the conflicts early on and do not swipe them under the carpet.

6. They align the stakeholders to the objectives of the project

Indicator: They speak about not just the project objectives but the business/organization goals and translate their projects’ status to business performance numbers.

Read a whitepaper on how to develop a competency development framework for assessing project managers