What's Your PMTQ?

 

What's Your PMTQ? That's the question posed by Project Management Institute's 2019 Pulse of the Profession report: The Future of Work: Leading the Way With PMTQ.

So before you answer, you might have a question — what is PMTQ? It stands for project management technology quotient. PMTQ is "a person's ability to adapt, manage and integrate technology based on the needs of the organization or the project at hand."

PMTQ is in demand in organizations, large and small. It's a "must-have, make-or-break skill set," according to the report, which defines a high PMTQ by three key characteristics and examples:

1. Always-on curiosity. You're always looking for what's next—trying out new approaches, exploring new ideas, testing new technologies. High PMTQ project leaders and organizations use initial projects as experiments.

2. All-inclusive leadership. You're maximizing the potential of your team regardless of each individual's age, experience, digital knowledge, skill set or location High PMTQ project leaders don't just "manage" people; they advocate.

3. A future-proof talent pool. Your company is recruiting, training and retaining project professionals who possess "digital age" skills as well as the will and ability to adapt their skills according to new trends. High PMTQ organizations invest in developing their workforce along with their offerings.

How do you rate yourself and your organization on these three characteristics? Low or high, there is always work to be done when it comes to PMTQ because, well, the technology landscape is always changing while digital disruption is here to stay.

The Future of Work report recommends a number of processes and capabilities, borrowed from PMTQ innovators, to help organizations and individuals boost their PMTQ. (Some are obvious, such as providing ongoing project management training and defining a career path for project managers. But it's often the case that what is "obvious" is not always what is done.)

For me the most revealing insight from the Future of Work report is that high PMTQ organizations—and by extension, their project leaders and teams—"demonstrate a strong ability to shift their way of getting work done." The report found that they are twice as likely as low PMTQ organizations to use hybrid project management practices (60 percent to 29 percent). Similar differences are found in their use of change management, design thinking, Agile and DevOps approaches. 

High PMTQ organizations enjoy higher stakeholder satisfaction rates, less waste and better project outcomes, according to the report. Indeed, PMTQ = ROI — but not just for businesses. The ROI can be yours, too, in the form of advancement, opportunity and satisfaction. Invest in yourself.