How to Foster Psychological Safety

Bruce is the founder of ProjectManagementHacks.com, a resource for growing IT project managers.

  Leadership   Organizational Culture   PMO  

The top 10% of project management offices score highly across five dimensions:

1. Governance
2. Integration and alignment
3. Processes
4. Technology and data
5. People

The PMI and PWC Maturity index uses these five dimensions to assess high-performing PMOs. Here I want to focus on the “people” dimension from the psychological safety angle.

What Is Psychological Safety?
In management circles, psychological safety has been gaining ground recently. According to a 2023 article in the Harvard Business Review, psychological safety means:

“Team psychological safety is a shared belief held by team members that it’s OK to take risks, express their ideas and concerns, speak up with questions, and admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences.”

Fostering a high level of psychological safety isn’t just about creating a positive workplace. It’s a crucial success factor to achieve all of your PMO goals.

Psychological Safety Contributes to People Goals
My vision of a successful project management office emphasizes people. Specifically, the idea is that a PMO has a valuable role in developing and growing people. Developing people includes formal training, work experience, and providing opportunities to people.

Psychological safety matters to people goals because growth and learning require a certain level of …

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