PM Network

So you want to climb the career ladder. You’re doing well in your job but you envision yourself growing, doing more, gaining skills and managing larger teams and initiatives.

A good boss can help you on your career path. He or she will mentor you, promote you with company executives and let you know about great opportunities.

Unfortunately, every boss is not a good boss. As a matter of fact, your boss could be the biggest obstacle to your ladder-climbing ambitions.

An article in this month’s PM Network^® looks at several different boss behaviors that could derail your career journey. Fortunately, there are ways around these obstructionist managers, and this article details what you can do.

For the boss who tends to steal credit for project wins and accomplishments, the article recommends promoting dialogue and forging direct relationships with key internal stakeholders. This is especially important right after wrapping up a successful project.

If your boss is the type that is too busy to map out a skills development plan or talk about career goals, you can stretch your role and its responsibilities in order to grow on the job. Opportunities may come up that will enable you to show what you can do beyond your ordinary duties.

For organizations with very loose reporting structures for project professionals (i.e., you don’t really have a boss), the article suggests relying on project peers and company mentors to give you the advice and props that you need to forge ahead on your career path. More senior project managers may be able to help you out.

And in case these ideas don’t help you move forward, the article includes a sidebar that explains when it might be time to find a new employer.

If you are looking for career advice, be sure to check out PM Network every month. PMI members have been turning to it for valuable information and perspectives for over 30 years.

Do your New Year’s resolutions include finding a new job? Get help on where to look with the 2019 Jobs Report, published inside the January edition of PM Network^®.

While overall demand for project managers is very strong, it is not consistent from country to country and sector to sector. This year’s Jobs Report focuses on eight countries: United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, United States, India, Nigeria, China and Germany.

Here’s a quick trip around the hiring world: In the U.K., construction is booming. There are more than 500 tall-building projects in the pipeline in London alone. Mexico has a new government and an evolving project management culture. Be ready to work as a freelancer or contractor.

In Brazil, offshore oil is growing fast while growth forecasts for the overall economy are pessimistic. The U.S. is enjoying robust growth predictions and is seeing talent shortages in many sectors. India has widespread demand for project managers but there is a gap between skills needed and skills offered. Nigeria should see growth in its infrastructure sector to help the country climb out of a 2016 recession.

China has shifted from a manufacturing and export-oriented economy to a technology-driven economic growth model. Germany’s economy remains brisk and buoyant, with its growth rate outpacing other European countries.

The Jobs Report is peppered with advice from professionals on how to get ahead in your career in 2019. An infographic covers worldwide outlooks in six sectors expected to generate high demand for project talent. As a bonus, the report includes a feature-length article explaining how to get hired when the recruiter doing the first sort is a computer with artificial intelligence.

PM Network welcomes you to 2019. We hope it is successful and that your resolutions come true.

In this, the final blog post for me in 2018, I’ll acquaint current and potential readers of PM Network^® with the magazine’s Edge section.

Edge contains a collection of quick-reading, newsy articles that will update you about interesting projects, trends and potential opportunities. In December’s PM Network, the section begins with a heartwarming profile of a water park in Texas, USA that was built so everyone, including those with disabilities, can enjoy the facility. The team behind the water park tweaked the design based on stakeholder feedback.

Next is a brief article that testifies to the power of disruptive technology. The article reports that Dubai is now requiring 25 percent of new buildings must be 3D printed within the next seven years. The reasoning behind the mandate is to reduce human construction labor by 70 percent in a place where heat makes it difficult, and to cut building material cost by up to 90 percent.

Digital transformation is part of the next story, as well. Oil companies will use technology to help them profit from drilling small or very remote wells.

Next story…same story. Restaurants are using more and more robots to not just serve food but cook and prepare it as well. Robots are ideal for repetitive tasks—a recent analysis pinned 73 percent of food service and accommodation industry workers now perform could be automated.

Flipping the page, the Edge reader learns that despite a recent collapse of a prefabricated overpass that made big headlines, the modular building method is still quite popular in the construction industry.

Edge then focuses on a growing area of the economy (and result of a growing economy), the increasing challenge of properly disposing electrical and electronic waste. Projects are bringing electronics recycling plants to several parts of the world as a means to solve this challenge.

New York City certainly has a growing economy. It also has a subway system in massive disrepair. Projects to overhaul the system are being planned, but funding has not been found.

In between these two final Edge items is a short report about the perils of failed IT integration. This was pinned as the cause of suspected money laundering at a branch of Danske Bank A/S. The branch relied on its own IT platform rather than using the bank’s IT platform, resulting in questionable transactions not being flagged.

As you can see, Edge covers a world of interesting projects and project-related news. We invite you to follow Edge (and the rest of the content of PM Network) in the new year. Look for our annual Jobs Report in January!

At the recently completed PMO Symposium^®, the winner of the 2018 PMO of the Year Award was announced. You may wonder what were the award-winning traits of the winner. The December PM Network^® spells out why the project management office for Australian telecom Telstra was selected for this honor.

Turning back the hands of time, back in 2012 Telstra did a capital project audit and found out that nearly a third of the company’s strategic project investments were not meeting goals. So the company launched a PMO that year, focused on strategic planning and delivery. Since the founding, the PMO has provided structure and oversight to all major capital projects. The C-suite enthusiastically backs the efforts of the PMO, which has a full-time staff of 24 who oversee more than 1,800 project managers and 1,265 projects worldwide.

The PMO comes with power. Executive leaders within the PMO can hold business unit leaders accountable for delivering their projects’ benefits—and can influence shutdowns of projects that don’t deliver. They can also issue a “strong recommendation for change.”

Telstra leaders say the PMO’s biggest success has been bringing discipline to the company’s capital spend. The company has the largest capital expenditure budget in Australia. Discipline is grounded by a focus on key performance indicators.

Another benefit of the company’s PMO is its success in forging a culture of project excellence through talent development and training. Sponsors and key stakeholders are not overlooked—there is training for them as well.

Do you know of a PMO that deserves this honor and recognition? Be sure to nominate that PMO for the 2019 PMO of the Year Award.

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA was a dark place in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina paid an unwelcome visit. About 40,000 military families were affected when the hurricane damaged the Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facility. The damage was so bad, the hospital had to be totally replaced.

The US$1 billion project, which wrapped up this year, was selected as the 2018 PMI^® Project of the Year. The use of sound project management principles made this success possible. Scope changes were limited to those necessary to deliver better patient care. The team took advantage of lessons-learned databases from previous VA projects. Better upfront planning ensured realistic timeline goals and helped foster a culture of good communication and problem solving.

The project team went the extra mile to secure buy-in of stakeholders: veterans, families and the community. The latter group had grown weary of delays in rebuilding their city after Katrina; this project offered hope.

Extra care was taken to mitigate risks connected with any future hurricanes. For example, heating and cooling systems and mission-critical equipment were placed on higher floors and floodgates were incorporated in lower floors so elevators wouldn’t flood. Windows were designed to withstand winds of up to 130 miles (210 kilometers) per hour.

The project was delivered on time and came in about 14 percent under budget. The facility has an increased reach now, serving more than 70,000 military veterans and employing 2,263 staff, up from 1,600 before Katrina.

Get more details in the cover story of November PM Network. And be sure to check out the behind-the-scenes video.