Insights into the individual career paths and development of serial PMs

PMI Australia Conference

Breakout Session 5

Tue 26th May 2015, 11.45am – 12.45pm, Main Theatre

Presenter: Dr Jason Bingham

1. What have today’s PMs’ career path experiences been?

2. How do today’s PMs relate to their current situation including the PM profession?

3. What are today’s PMs’ views on their career futures and development priorities?

What we will cover in this session

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• For the past 60 years or so, organisations have increasingly been using projects to achieve their strategic objectives. The World Bank suggests that 22% of the world’s USD $48 trillion GDP is gross capital formation, which is almost entirely project-based. In India the figure is 34%, and in China it is 45%. Moreover, there is the growing propensity across all industries to undertake more project-based activity within operating expenditures.

• With projects representing such a significant proportion of global economic activity, the importance of project management, including the human capital inputs, becomes apparent.

• Yet, not enough is known about project managers, including their career path experiences, their attitudes and perceptions about PM as a career and profession, their contribution to strengthening the PM profession, and their own future development needs.

• This problem of poor understanding has a plethora of implications, not only academically but for PM careerists, their profession and the industry sectors in which their services are in demand.

Background

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• The study explores serial project managers in Queensland Australia, using a qualitative methodology.

• The specific technique or method used is semi-structured interviews, chosen because of its ability to provide maximum opportunity for complete and accurate communication of ideas between the researcher and participant.

• The sample group in this study comprised participants who could demonstrate at least equivalence to PMI’s PMP® credential, a globally recognised standard and arguably the best-known of its type at time of writing.

• In total there were 25 participants.

About the study

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• On average 25 years’ industry experience (range 10-45 years)

• 12 born in Australia, the rest in 8 other countries (4 in UK)

• Most common sector experience = IT, mining, manufacturing, government

• Only 25% had not worked in more than one sector

• 75% hold degrees (between 1-3), 23 types, only one is PM-dedicated

• 80% hold non-degree qualifications (up to 5), 21 types, 14 are PMP-certified

• 76% are PMI members

Demographics of the 25 participants

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• How have people come to identify themselves as a project manager?

• How many years’ industry experience had they had (to this point)?

• How many role types have they had during their career?

• How many countries have they lived and worked in during their career?

• To what extent do they feel that they have self-managed their career?

• What do they know and think of personal branding, in their own career?

• Have they seen, or do they expect to see, a so-called plateau(s) in their career?

PAST: - what have today’s PMs’ career path experiences been?

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How did each participant come to identify as a project manager?

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ID: 4.3.2.1

How many years of experience before considering themselves a bona fide project manager?

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ID: 4.3.2.2

How many different types of roles had they had during their career, other than PM?

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ID: 4.3.2.3

How many countries had they lived and worked in during their career?

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ID: 4.3.2.4

To what extent did they feel they had consciously self-managed their career path?

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ID: 4.3.2.5n may be greater than 25, as more than one response allowed

What did they think about the role of personal branding in their career to date?

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ID: 4.3.2.6n may be greater than 25, as more than one response allowed

Had they seen (or did they expect to see) a so-called plateau in their career?

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ID: 4.3.2.7n may be greater than 25, as more than one response allowed

• The participants in this study tended to be highly educated and highly mobile individuals who have come from diverse ethnic and professional backgrounds and experiences to become project managers, after several years of other work experience.

• The participants in this study tended to perceive their career path to date as having been largely self-directed, and more planned than opportunistic, although the importance of planning tended to have had appreciated over time.

• The participants in this study tended to identify that career path including trajectory is heavily dependent on personal situation and personal reputation, the latter being overwhelmingly influenced by actual performance at work including most recent and known performance.

Conclusions about their career ‘past’

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• What if any professional memberships have they had and do they maintain?

• Is their PM body (if holding a membership) their main professional affiliation?

• In relative terms how valuable has PM been for them, as a career theme?

• What is their current level of interaction with their PM body?

• What is their current level of interaction with early PM careerists (including pre-career)?

• What are their thoughts more generally about PMs supporting early PM careerists?

• How do they personally define career success?

• Do they have any fundamental regrets about their career and career path decisions to date?

• How reliant do they feel that their own self-identity is on being a PM?

PRESENT: - how do today’s PMs relate to their current situation including the PM profession?

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What, if any, professional association memberships they had held during their career (current or previous and project management or otherwise)?

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ID: 4.3.3.1

Member of a PM association (current) 21Member of a second PM association (current or previous) 3Non-PM association memberships (current or previous)

American Institute of Mining & Metallurgy 1American Physics Society 1Asian Center for Engineering Computations & Software 1Association of Arbitrators 1Association of Cost Engineers 1Assoc. for the Advancement of Cost Engineering 2Australian Computer Society 1Australian Institute of Company Directors 2Australia Institute of Management 1Australian Institute of Physics 1Australian Maintenance Engineers Association 1Australian Optics Society 1Australia Philippines Chamber of Commerce 1British Computer Society 1Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland 1Chartered Institute of Management Accounting 1Chartered Institute of Marketing 1Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers 1Institute of Engineers Australia 6Institute of Mining & Metallurgy 2International Institute of Business Analysis 1IT Service Management Forum 1Royal Aeronautical Society 1Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors 1Software Engineering Australia 1Women in IT 1

Total professional memberships during career [average] 2.3

• 84% of participants held current membership of a PM professional association.

• Many had held memberships in non-PM associations also.

• Approx. 50% of participants who held a current PM association membership also held a concurrent membership in one or more non-PM associations.

• 70% of participants holding concurrent memberships said that their PM association was their primary affiliation.

• Less than 5% had never been a member of a professional association (n.b. this figure was 50% for the 4 x female participants).

How valuable have they found project management as a career theme?

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ID: 4.3.3.2

What do they call themselves (i.e. occupation title) to others?

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ID: 4.3.3.3

Where a member of a PM professional association, how actively involved are they?

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ID: 4.3.3.4

What level of interaction did they have currently with early PM careerists (or else those contemplating a career in PM)?

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ID: 4.3.3.5/6

• n.b. when asked their attitude to the role of experienced PMs in supporting and nurturing early careerists, 100% described the role that experienced PMs can play as important or else very important.

How do they personally define career success?

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ID: 4.3.3.7n may be greater than 25, as more than one response allowed

Did they have any fundamental regrets about their career path to date?

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ID: 4.3.3.8

• Overall, 58% had some form of regret about how their career had played out to date, although seldom discernible as ‘fundamental’.

• Common types of regrets included, ‘I should have completed a degree’, ‘I should have gained experience overseas’, or ‘I should have planned my moves better’. Some stronger types of regrets included, ‘I should have chosen a more traditional profession’, or ‘I shouldn’t have gone into IT’.

• Interestingly, none of the participants responded with strong negativity towards project management as a career path (for example, ‘I hate my work’) and many elaborated on why they had either few or no regrets in working in the project management profession.

• 86% of IT PMs identified having one or more regrets.

• 75% of females (only 4 in total) had one or more regrets.

Did the participants feel reliant on their role as a source of self-identity?

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ID: 4.3.3.9

• The participants in this study tended to perceive their career as a project manager as only one of a number of disciplinary themes or threads in their working identity.

• The participants in this study tended to be actively involved in their PM association and the predominant purpose of their involvement was networking and receiving practically structured personal development. This involvement extended to providing their own support as experienced PMs to early PM careerists, however there was shortfall between their strong support in principle and their actual personal involvement (outside of work).

• The participants in this study defined career success in terms of three dominant factors – achievement at work, enjoyment of their work and work-life balance.

Conclusions about their career ‘present’

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• To what extent do they view their career path and development needs and priorities in terms of different stages (e.g. early-mid-late stage of career)?

• What stage of career do they see themselves being in currently?

• What do they see as their career development priorities going forward?

• What level or type of support do they expect to receive from their organisation towards meeting these development priorities?

• To what extent have they thought about what the end of (late stage of) their career may look like?

FUTURE: - what are today’s PMs’ views on their career futures and development priorities?

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To what extent do they view their career path and development needs and priorities in terms of different stages (e.g. early-mid-late stage of career)?

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ID: 4.3.4.1

• Most of the participants relied on a two-dimensional ‘then versus now’ response, in the first instance.

• Key expressions that capture the essence of what the participants described about stages of their career include:

• Early career stage = money, travel, recognition, status, technical skills development, learning;

• Mid career stage = managerial skills, family, changing perspective, realisation, perspective, conflicts, work-life responsibilities; and

• Late career stage = strategic, guru / master, consulting, teaching, flexibility, choice, less hours, contentment.

• A common recognition amongst the participants that career and development needs do change over time particularly as personal circumstances change.

What stage of career do they see themselves being in currently?

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ID: 4.3.4.2

• n.b. per earlier questions, average industry experience is 25 years.

What do they see as their career development priorities going forward?

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ID: 4.3.4.3n may be greater than 25, as more than one response allowed

What level or type of support do they expect to receive from their organisation towards meeting these development priorities?

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ID: 4.3.4.4

Two prominent attitudinal themes that emerged from the participants’ responses were:

(i) that some project managers prefer to take care of their own development in order to maintain their sense of independence, and

(ii) quid pro quo, whereby organisations that expect and receive a lot (of effort) from their PMs should reciprocate this effort by giving a lot (by way of development support) in return.

To what extent have they thought about what the end of (late stage of) their career may look like?

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ID: 4.3.4.5

Consideration givenHas considered, has clear attitudes 80%Has not considered much, is not sure 20%

Attitude to downshiftingDownshifting, meaning less work (e.g. fewer hours, non-work interests) 64%Downshifting, meaning different work (e.g. consult, teach, Board role, 'give back', less responsibility) 76%

Attitude to retirement ageRetirement an age (e.g. specific age, a 'used by' date) 8%Retirement a state of mind 68%

1. Downshifting is a popular late career strategy which is associated first and foremost with doing less (and less over time) of the same type of work;

2. Retirement age is an unpopular concept and commonly perceived as unnecessarily abrupt, forced (e.g. legislated retirement age), and even antiquated. A much-preferred strategy or scenario is gradual and self-directed transition to non-working life.

3. Consulting is seen as a key means of downshifting or slowing down one’s working life;

4. Shifting to a lower level (less demanding or responsibility) role in the same profession is not a popular downshifting strategy. This was perceived as a non-option or backward step which would only lead to less pay with no clear benefit and probably a loss of benefits;

5. Spending more time on non-work (own choice) interests is a popular downshifting strategy and a common objective associated with this is to keep no less busy but to have more variety in the activities involved in; and

6. The desire or intent to ‘give back’ (both to the profession and to the community) becomes strong for many in their late career plans. The late career stage is seen as point where time can be ‘freed up’ for such endeavours in a way not possible earlier in career.

• The participants in this study generally supported the notion that careers are useful to view in terms of life stage, not least because needs change over time. However, most of the participants based their responses on hindsight with many observing that the importance of life stage had only recently entered their consciousness as something of importance.

• The participants in this study overwhelmingly acknowledged the role of personal development in career path planning. However, they were largely polarised in their attitudes towards the role of organisations (employers) in supporting their development needs as project managers.

• The participants in this study identified the concept of retirement age as largely antiquated, overtaken in the modern career context by downshifting which epitomises flexibility, choice and lifestyle.

Conclusions about their career ‘future’

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• Project managers tend to be highly experienced, multi-disciplined professionals whose association with the project management profession is often characterised by latency, emergence and self-identification.

• Moreover, with project management still being relatively young and emergent when compared to other and more traditional professions, the concept of the project manager career hence presents as a moving, impalpable target that whilst on the one hand benefits from being flexible to labour market demands, on the other hand seems inevitably encumbered with poor understanding, not least by project sponsors, early careerists and in many cases project managers themselves.

• This epitomises the situation of the serial project manager.

Main conclusion of this study

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A generic model depicting the serial PM’s career path

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Bingham, JD 2013, 'An individual-centric study of career paths and development of serial project managers', DBA thesis, Southern Cross University, NSW, http://epubs.scu.edu.au/theses/293/, p. 146.

Figure - Typical influencing forces in becoming and staying a serial project manager

THANK YOU

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Want to find out more about this study?

Download a full copy of the report at: http://epubs.scu.edu.au/theses/293/