Your Career Development Focus Is (Probably) Wrong

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development   Estimating  

During the course of my career, I’ve conducted a lot of project manager performance reviews. Part of those discussions is always going to be consideration of development plans—how the employee needs to develop as a project manager and leader in the coming period, and how I and the rest of the company need to support them. I also have a lot of people reaching out who don’t work directly with me; they are looking for help and guidance in developing their careers, hoping for some tips on where they should focus their growth.

Obviously, personal development is a good thing, but I see two areas of focus in the vast majority of these interactions. One of them is reflective of the reality of project management today—and is extremely important if project managers are to remain relevant and successful. However, I believe the success of the other is being undermined by an absence of development in a third area, and that’s what I want to look at in this article.

The three development categories
The first category of skills development that project managers focus on is on the development of completely new skill areas. This diversification or broadening of the skill set has been something project managers have been considering a lot in recent years as a response to the shift in project delivery to business outcomes, not just project deliverables.

This…

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