Companies that invest in talented people for their project-management needs see higher levels of performance from their teams than those who don’t. For organizations looking to implement new strategic objectives, focus on people, processes, and technology, the catalyst for successful outcomes within any business. And when these three pillars are in alignment, both talent managers and project managers can function in unison as sustainable business units across the company.
The First Pillar: People
Talent management is important for effective project management, and project management is important for effective talent management. This is a mindset that plays an integral role in how we operate at The Carrera Agency:
“The right people for the right projects, that’s talent management. Having the right people to lead these projects, that’s project management.”
Although the talent manager and project manager comparison has been made for years, the emphasis on ‘people’ is more widely valued, as people and their differentiated skillsets present companies with an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in a project-driven landscape. Project managers may have varying scopes from one project to another, but the need to understand and partner with other personnel remains constant. The mindset for success is simple: people come first.
From a talent management lens, the goal is to find, hire, and retain project managers who combine technical skills with sound leadership, and have strategic and business management expertise. From our perspective, talent managers focus on identifying the most qualified project practitioners who have a history with managing high-performing teams and delivering results in today’s landscape of rapid innovation. However, this is only a top-level view of what’s involved in talent management for project management consultants.
Why Talent Managers and Project Managers use a Personal Approach
The talent manager is responsible for discovering the details that determine if a consultant is a fit for a project. A person’s experience, portfolio, technical background, and a specialized skill set is crucial information to gather and analyze early on in the hiring process. However, when talent managers must find project management consultants, they must also search for characteristics such as personality, culture fit, and soft skills.
Similarly, from a project management lens, experienced leaders align the right people with the right jobs using the right processes and strategies. The journey to project completion may be complex, but the goal is simple: execute project goals with efficiency — using people.
Additionally, experienced project managers add improvements to a team’s capability and process — often showcasing their ability to partner with management and business stakeholders to ensure projects meet the company’s strategic and financial goals.
It’s estimated that project managers spend 90% of their time communicating — often through status reports and meetings. And although the fundamentals of ‘good’ project management (people, schedule, budget) have remained constant for years, how project teams interact has transformed.
A good project manager must be equally skilled with technology as they are with unifying those who have different backgrounds and skillsets. In a world run by constant connectivity, managers prepare for talent pools with varying abilities, and also have the aptitude to bring team members up to speed for any given assignment. Nowadays, the best project managers have a multilevel understanding of the business challenge, a multidisciplinary approach to the project, and effective communication with the project stakeholders.
The Second Pillar: Process
The second pillar of support for both talent management and project management rests on having sound processes. Although every organization will tweak these to best fit their corporate structure, the underlying value for having one (or many) remains similar.
When analyzing talent management in its most organic form, and as it relates to the project management profession, a practitioner’s approach has three steps: preparation, identification, and communication.
Why Processes Matters for Talent Management
In the preparation stage, a talent manager learns what a company needs and determines how a person fills that void. Talent managers also use this phase to educate themselves on the talent pool before engaging the hiring manager.
In the identification phase, talent managers look for factors or attributes that the hiring organization values (i.e., performance record, potential growth outlook, and competencies desired). People commonly possess a mix of potential and immediate value, so it’s up to the talent managers to interpret their findings.
When identifying consultants, for example, the identification stage presents an opportunity to gain insights on both people and the organizations they may represent while using those insights to select the best potential person based on their experience and fit. For example, some project manager positions are “pure PMs,” where an understanding of the technology and terminology at a high level is required. However, other times, subject matter experts (SMEs) and technical teams support the PM with technical expertise.
The communication stage, as its name implies, calls for strategic action to initiate the interaction with consultants. Not only does this stage bring awareness to available opportunities for identified professionals, it also accounts for the time, energy, and skill involved with attracting the best possible people for a given project.
At this point, building rapport and developing dialogue is critical for discovering the qualities and traits of a person. As our team points out: many PMs will tell you they are useful on any project by following a disciplined project management approach. However, software/application projects tend to follow an Agile/iterative approach, while infrastructure projects tend the follow the Waterfall methodology. Expertise in the methodology being followed is crucial to a consultant’s success.
Why Processes Matter for Project Management
The processes involved in project management simplifies, organizes, and aligns teams for project execution. Approaching these objectives is best done with a dual-sided perspective: the company defined processes and personal processes that project managers bring to the job.
Company processes are often labeled “best practice,” given the company’s unique environment and customer base. Institutions such as the Project Management Institute (PMI), or equivalent, help to establish these practices while providing opportunities for learning and development for project managers. While a certificate from PMI is no guarantee that an individual will be an exceptional Project Manager, it does provide a foundation for expertise in the tools, processes, and ethics involved with the position.
The personal process is how the individual (Project Manager) works with the tools given to them. On-the-job performance reflects how they handle their tools and with what processes (both people and software). If a PM poorly manages their tools, they replace them often. And if they maintain and respect them, they perform better and for longer.
The Third Pillar: Technology
Choosing the best technology tools is a challenge, especially with so many options available. Yet, the introduction of new technology impacts how talent and project management teams communicate. For project managers, the process of learning is continuous. For consultants who work on complex projects, it’s expected.
Most project managers and talent managers have experienced the “tearing down” of communication barriers within their careers; even social media impacts the communication processes of practitioners, now that they have access to talent pools and team members through Facebook and LinkedIn. More than just a trend, social media and new software tools make constant connectivity the norm, allowing team members to share their work across borders and timezones. And although people no longer need to share a physical location for collaboration, managers need to be even more intentional with their management and communication techniques. After all, they are in charge of efforts between IT and the business stakeholders.
Organizations like the Project Management Institute provide members with a collection of templates to manage a project. A digital library that contains all the project data necessary for completion is essential for everyone involved — another example of constant connectivity.
Technology has also influenced the development of new scheduling tools ranging from the most complex software to simple cloud-based interfaces. Having a standardized tool that integrates with new software within the company increases efficiency for all project managers across the business. Similar for talent managers developing relationships with consultants, communication is the most important tool for unifying a team. If a project manager can’t communicate, their technical skills are irrelevant. The project will fail.
The importance of technology and how it impacts a PM extends beyond the tools they use. Certain PM positions require a functional understanding of the product and its nuances but doesn’t require an in-depth technical understanding of how the functionality is implemented. Other clients are looking for a technical PM, meaning someone who came up through the ranks and used to be hands-on with the technologies or still does a blended role of project management & technical responsibilities.
A comparison that’s worth repeating, “The right people for the right projects, that’s talent management, having the right people to lead these projects, that’s project management.
These two fields align interrelated teams which emphasize an importance on ‘people’ and ‘projects’ within the field of information technology. And when analyzing the two from the perspective of a practitioner, you find people, processes, and technology to be the three pillars to performance and success.