Come together right now over me
The Beatles, “Come Together”

Only the most important day in project management across the entirety of the universe, and we can’t agree on it.

OK, maybe that’s a bit grandiose, but still, one would think we could all come together on what day is the right one for everyone to honour their profession. The fact that it isn’t so just goes to show the task itself to be a tad grandiose, too.

Enough waffling, here’s what I’m on about: Worldwide, project managers came together to celebrate International Project Management Day Thursday…everywhere but in the UK, as we at The Camel discovered that project management day, according to PMI UK, doesn’t come until 11th November. Not only that, but it seems places are still available.

Blame Bonfire Night, one would figure. When you think about it, rare is the occasion when the entire world can agree on anything, let alone something so simple as an International Project Management Day. Holdouts are true in any event: think of when we change our clocks. The UK fell back an hour at 2am, 25th October; The US (where my side of the family still resides) waited a week, then gained their extra hour of sleep on 1st November. For a week, I felt closer to home, if only because the time difference was now four hours instead of five.

But I digress: in spite of The Beatles’ influence toward coming together, one thing I can tell you is you’ve got to be free…to peruse these Monday Morning Links.

Five For Linking

• John Estrella of Dr. John Estrella’s Blog gives us a nice Rule of 3 to live by with bad news: Target, Trigger and Tweak – http://blog.johnestrella.com/2009/09/how-to-manage-bad-news-in-your-projects/
• Sarah Fister Gale, who writes for the GreenBiz website, pens an article for PM Network Magazine on how beneficial the PR windfall from sustainable IT projects can be for your company – http://www.pmnetwork-digital.com/pmnetworkopen/200911#pg45
• Elizabeth Harrin of pm4girls took last week off from the Links, but apparently wants that prime parking space back. She is soliciting your vote for Best Project Management blog from Computer Weekly, and also offers a short, witty take this time on International Project Management Day…or is it? – http://www.pm4girls.elizabeth-harrin.com/2009/11/happy-international-pm-day/
• Cornelius Fichtner of PM Podcast offers another hard-hitting look into our profession, delving into PMO, PPM and Governance with Gartner’s Audrey Apfel – http://www.thepmpodcast.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=265&Itemid=9
• Ciarán Norris at his Self Titled Blog astutely breaks down the McCartney classic ‘Hey Jude’: Project Management style! – http://ciarannorris.co.uk/2009/11/06/if-paul-mcartney-was-a-project-manager/ (UPDATE: Ciaran informed me to give proper credit for the Hey Jude chart to Love All This.)

Tweeter to Watch: @RolandMS – Roland McLain-Smith, an IT programme manager, seems to have reached the Howard Beale stage of his interaction with assumptions. Without cracking up, mind you. But the way in which McLain-Smith relays to us that ‘he’s not gonna take this anymore’ is subtle and clever: put the assumption in all its silliness up for display to the world, and watch as the world discovers how asinine the belief is. Calm, cool, controlled and abundant, McLain-Smith’s Assumption of the Day blows the lid not just on assumptions but on the ominous ways of thinking behind those assumptions. This week’s best:

‘Assumption of the day – A supplier will remember to factor public holidays into their lead times.’

Shameless Arras / Camel Plug: I’m biased for my own team, but the link that follows (actually the one after) may have been one of the greatest practices in constructive criticism I have ever seen written in person, in addition to being a compelling blog post at The Camel. Our own Mick Hides delved into the ever-growing body of applications submitted with an abandon so reckless, he felt compelled to write about it for the sake of future applicants. Inattention to detail, poor focus on the job’s essential information, and a candidate’s inability to put themselves into the shoes of the person who might want to hire them highlight an enlightening article that will leave you nodding like a bobblehead. And hopefully applying for roles with a clear, present focus from now on.

The assessment centre is an examination tool used by employers for measuring job applicants in a real-world group setting. The exam is gaining traction in the corporate world because employers want to determine objectively what you really can do after you’ve said what you can do. Especially common in graduate-level hiring scenarios, the assessment group’s participants include the candidates themselves, often ranging from as few as six to as many as 20. But if you can imagine an X-Factor contestant singing their song, then turning around and singing a song by one of their competitors in the head-to-head elimination, you might gain better insight into the assessment centre dynamics. Make no mistake about it – at the assessment centre, roles will be reversed for different group exercises. Leaders will become followers, followers assume leadership, new responsibilities are given, skills are assessed & identified, and the hiring criteria is met or found to be wanting.

The desire of higher-end companies to use assessment centres has increased no doubt due to the centre’s attributes of objectivity in candidate evaluation. Wikijob.co.uk states that some companies:

“are prepared to spend money on assessment centres because they believe them to be the most accurate means of recruiting the right people for their vacant jobs”.

Assessment centres, in comparison to the more common job interview, have been judged by business psychologists to better determine a candidate’s competency. Especially in terms of what the candidate can do on their feet – in pre-assessment centre functions, employers routinely disseminate more up-to-date company information than can be found through candidate research. So it bears mentioning that if you have a question about something, ask – your ability to turn around and do some last-minute research on the missed information may not bear out what you’ve been told, thus putting you at a distinct disadvantage.

According to prospects.ac.uk, an invitation to participate in assessment centres usually takes place after a face-to-face interview and tends to run for two days, though situations can vary. Even the seemingly informal matters involved are anything but: social events tend to lead off the process:

“…where you meet a variety of people, including other candidates, the assessors, recent graduates and senior management. This is an excellent opportunity for you to find out about the organisation and to ask questions in a more informal setting. These events may appear to be informal and not part of the true assessment procedure, but you should behave in a way that reflects well on you.”

As expected, actual assessments come next in the form of work-related activities. Employers set up these functions with the intent of re-creating the company’s working atmosphere to a T, be it on company ground or elsewhere (hotels tend to be a common assessment spot). The Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD) says that the tasks set at the assessment centre should coincide with the details of the job description. In essence, while you may not be doing the job ‘on site’, you are still carrying out the functions the job requires to be done.

Now for the fun part: how to associate with your ‘teammates’. It can be a tricky situation, seeing as throughout various tasks, candidates have to switch responsibilities while associating with other candidates that can easily be construed as ‘competition’. The situation almost indirectly calls for a ‘master of all trades’ performer – desire to achieve without aggression; a good team worker without appearing too compliant; doing remedial tasks well and willingly while avoiding complete subservience to leadership.

But one thing to clear up is this: your cohorts should not be viewed as your competitors. WikiJob backs up this assertion: 

“All, several, one or none of your assessment group may be hired. You need to perform to a very high standard at an assessment centre, but you do not need to challenge, compete or disagree with other candidates. In fact, it may harm your assessors’ opinion of you if you do.”

The key to successful assessment centre approach is this – assume the role of your designated title at that moment to the best of your ability and to the benefit of the tasks at hand. Above all, projects need teamwork, communication, objective input, forward thinking and leadership. It’s tough to maintain excellence at any of those standards if you’re thinking along the lines of Vinnie Jones to their Paul Gascoigne in that infamous picture!

The heart of the objectivity lies with the assessment panel, an all-encompassing conglomeration of the company’s top executives across the board. Some of them come from HR; others serve as departmental managers; still more can be company partners. In general, the idea is to judge according to what each person holds true to the effective performance of the job. A programme manager may spot a flaw or strength the partner might have missed, and vice-versa. The wider the range of personnel there are to provide input, the more input the panel can have at their disposal to make an informed decision. So your teamwork, communication and leadership skills, and the way you interact with fellow candidates during tasks, becomes central to your effective performance.

Here are ten central tenets to your approach to an assessment centre:

1. Remember that assessment centres are used to judge candidate’s competency levels and is difficult to prepare in advance for i.e., Planning & Organising, Team Skills, Professional Knowledge & Judgement, Leadership, etc.
2. Generally, assessment centre activities for project management will include a project scenario (which may be derived from a real-life example). You may be asked (as a group) to produce any number of deliveries i.e., risk management plan, work breakdown structure, issues log, etc.
3. In group activities you may be assigned a team role or asked to put yourself forward for a position. Don’t be concerned if you feel the role you have been assigned is not one of leadership, the panel are also looking for good team behaviours including how you support the leader.
4. Be prepared to make sure you get the best out of the team regardless of your role within the group. Ask questions, play the devil’s advocate (a little!), confirm with the group on decisions made.
5. Assessment centres are not always about team working and group work, be prepared for tasks which are just directed at you. The panel will also be interested in seeing how you perform an individual task under pressure.
6. Give it 100%. Assessment centres can be hard work and some of the others in the group can be hard work too. Just be yourself and remember that the panel is looking for a display of strong competencies NOT how competitive you are.
7. Be gracious. If others in the group look a little lost or overcome with shyness, help them along by including them in the activity. Compassion will not be overlooked by the selection panel.
8. Often the activity will include an opportunity to present back to the panel on completion of the exercise. Not everyone will have the opportunity to do the actual presentation, so be prepared to perform another role like scribe or offer to part share the presentation with others in the group.
9. Some assessment centres include older more informal tasks such as the Shipwreck or Plane Crash exercises. If you’re not familiar with them, take a look.
10. I think you know what the final point of advice is going to be…be yourself! Really! Preparation is difficult for assessment centres, other than understanding what competencies are important for the job you are going for, you should be concentrating on giving the best performance you can.

So, how does it feel? And what will you be doing differently today? Planning on celebrating your special day?

Well the International Project Management Day is being celebrated with a webcast! Which is pretty underwhelming really but also I think says alot about the project management industry worldwide and in the UK. Do we really have a community anyway? Do we celebrate the successes in projects and the success of a project manager who delivers?

So in an ideal world what should the International Project Management Day really be about and how should we celebrate? I don’t have any answers but it would be great if anyone could share their thoughts (leave a comment by clicking the comment tab near the title)

Footnote:

Unfortunately, for some bizarre reason, the International Project Management Day is not until the 11th November in the UK (see the PMI UK Chapter) which just adds to the confusion for PMs in the UK!

Image © eyeSPIVE and used with permission.

Frustrated by the job application faux pas, we at Arras People think you need some enlightenment on what we expect of job seekers. (Image courtesy Zach Klein @ Flickr)

Everyone recognizes that we are currently experiencing a tough market. Feedback from candidates, reinforced by our own experiences, is that clients’ expectations are raised. I therefore find it unbelievable that candidates are being so blasé about the process of applying for roles

On a daily basis we are seeing capable candidates ruling themselves out of contention by a slapdash and shoddy approach to applying.

Know your place in the market and carefully select the roles you apply for

Desperate times seem to require desperate measures if the quality of applications we receive are any indication. Despite the record number of unemployed people chasing fewer roles, the concept of quantity over quality is perhaps not the best use of applicants’ time. Candidates will often bemoan the 50+ applications per week that they are sending out. When quizzed about success rates the answer will invariably be of low or non-existent response.

I know from talking to candidates in the past that some have written programs that automatically apply for roles if certain keywords are identified. In a similar vein are the candidates who themselves apply for any and all roles that match limited criteria. You have to ask yourselves whether this is a good approach.

Certainly within Arras we quickly recognize ‘serial’ applicants; these are candidates that apply for most positions from £20k Project assistants through to £70k Programme Managers. Candidates who do this are telling us that they do not have a clear idea of what it is they have to offer the market.

Client feedback is to only go forward with candidates who match 90%+ of the requirements. The days of selling transferable skills seem to be very limited at the moment. I feel this is to the detriment of clients as someone coming from a different sector or industry will often add more value than someone ingrained in the ‘sector/industry-think’. The problem is that any benefits will only become apparent in the medium to long-term and crisis tends to focus attention on short-term gains.

The candidates that are successful carefully select the roles they apply for and ensure that they meet all the criteria.

Present your best case for a role

This nicely moves us onto the next area; namely first impressions. The need for a generic CV hosted on a website is obvious to present the widest possible appeal to agencies and companies. However, when applying, take care to ensure that your application matches the requirements of the role.

We have spent a great deal of time pulling together advice on CVs and our approach allows for easy adaptation. We recommend profiles and key achievements in the first part of the CV and these are the key targets for amendment. This makes sense as it is often the first thing that a recruiter will look at when they open the CV on screen. I have adopted the term ‘shop window’ to describe this and for good reason. If the reader likes what they see in the shop window they are more likely to browse the remainder of the CV.

Too many times have candidates called to ask why they have been rejected for a role only for them to declare that the missing skills/experience is buried on page 2, 3 or 4 or not even there!

You have 10-15 seconds to make an impression. I am receiving 50-100 applicants for each role and know before I start that 80% of these will be unsuitable. I therefore need to quickly separate the ‘wheat from the chaff’.

Which would you prefer to be?

Tell us which role you are applying for

Everyday we get several applications for project manager or project support roles. Now being a programme and project management specialist recruitment business, unsurprisingly we always tend to have more than one of these type of roles on the go at any time.

With any of our roles there will always be an AP-xx-xxx type ID which you can use to tell us which role you are applying for. Rather than gaining extra attention the impression you create is one of laziness. If you apply through our website your email browser should automatically create the subject with the role ID.

Check to see what is being asked of you and provide it

I have just completed the review of over 100 applicants for a role and as usual have selected candidates to take forward. My preferred method is to ask candidates to clarify areas such as salary expectations and ability to travel to the role.

I never cease to be amazed by the number of candidates that:

• Have to ask what the rate is;
• Submit a rate significantly higher than that advertised; or
• Quote day rates when the role states a salary.

The final point was of particular note during the current role. I had made a specific mention of this fact within the job ad.

From a recruiter’s perspective, think what you are telling them. You have no attention to detail and lack of perception of your place in the market. Worse, this wastes time and creates a negative perception of you in the eyes of recruiter.

At least a third of people fail to respond to my clarification questions which makes me wonder why they applied in the first place.

Occasionally a cover letter is required and again it is surprising how few people bother to do this.

If you fail to follow simple instructions then you are automatically ruling yourself out of the running for the role.

What you should be doing

The path to your next role can so easily be diverted by a simple lack of care and attention. The number of mistakes I see suggest that if you get the basics right, you automatically improve your chances. 

In summary this is what you should be doing:

• Know your place in the market and carefully select the roles you apply for
• Present your best case for a role
• Tell us which role you are applying for
• Check to see what is being asked of you and provide it

Image courtesy Zach Klein @ Flickr and re-used with permission.

So, most people will be familar with the concept of speed dating (3 minutes to find out something from the person across the table from you…..) In this event there were nine tables that covered the APM’s specialist interest groups:

• Contracts and Procurement
• Planning and Earned Value
• Governance
• Women in Project Management
• Risk Management
• Benefits Management
• Programme Management
• People
• Project and Programme Assurance

On each table was a representative from the SIG group or at the very least an experienced project professional with lots of experience in that particular area. I started off with “Women in Project Management” and shook hands with Nicola George, a recent member of the WiPM group. My opening question was “Why do we need this group?”. The conversation centred around Nicola’s more personal reasons for joining the group rather than a militant debate about how women are underrepresented etc etc. Nicola works within the construction industry and she is looking for a female mentor who could assist and guide her through the more softer skills needed to hold her own in this sector. She already has a male mentor in her place of work but felt she needed a balanced approach and signed up to the group to seek out an ideal mentor.

So personal stories and opinions were certainly shared during the event but there were actually more “mentoring” styles – practical help, hints and tips – when I visited other tables.

John Meakin was focused on Project and Programme Assurance, John’s experience has a senior project manager (within the construction industry again!) was excellent. Now, assurance to me has always been a bit of a yawn subject. Working in professional services, assurance was always lumped in the quality camp, something that was always a bit of a tick in the box exercise after the event rather than anything proactive or useful. I was surprised to learn quite a lot from John in that short 3 minute slot, about how assurance is actually more synonymous with risk management and starts at the beginning of the process (in John’s business that means at bid/tender stage) before the project manager even gets involved in the project. I guess for me, the speed mentoring was actually more about hearing about other industries and how project management is practiced. How can learnings and experiences from one industry be translated to another?

The Benefits Management SIG is still new (only formed 3 months ago) and is deemed to be one of the hot topics of project and programme management at the moment.  I left a query with the mentor to check with the SIG group, I wanted to know how practical the group is – do they share tools, processes, tangible things that practitioners can use in their daily work. I’ll let you know if I get a response!

That was one of the negatives of the event for me, most of the table hosts were from two major organisations (construction and engineering based) with the odd one or two independents. The knowledge and practice shared were a great insight to those industries but attendees with a wholly different working environment could have struggled to see the real value (or what can I take away from that and really use)

Putting all that aside it was a great way to network. Sometimes going along to these events, it can be difficult to get around most people and have a chat about what’s going on in their world of project management. This structure was a great way to get people chatting and really that’s what it’s all about. I hope the APM take the idea, finesse it a little with a wider spread of mentors, and get people sharing thoughts, ideas, opinions and best practice.

Oh, Lisa! You and your stories! “Dad, Bart is a vampire.” “Beer kills brain cells.” Now, let’s get back to that… building thingy… where our beds and T.V… is.
Homer Simpson

The supposed horrors of halloween have given way over the years to the laughable manner in which we try to amuse ourselves. In my case, the humor is condescending, cynical, often good for a mere chuckle. Condescending, you ask? Indeed. To wit: I see Michael Myers walking slowly as Laurie Strode runs frantically, apply simple physics to determine there’s no way he can keep up with her, and chuckle at the sheer tomfoolery that allows Myers to catch up with her nevertheless, knife in hand, butcher in the making. It seeps into other related horror films as an iconic motif for villains, too cool to actually run after their prey.

I laugh and shake my head.

Couple that with the 20-year-run of “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween specials from The Simpsons, and you can bet the 31st of October is nothing but an extended run of jokes and head shakes. While “Treehouse” ups the ante of my laughter significantly, I’m about as scared as Harry Callahan.

The theme is humour – “Humour, people!!!” – for this week’s installment of the Monday Morning Links. But there’s also a touch of reality-vs-spin, press relations and the ‘horrors’ your project might encounter.

Five For Linking

• Cinda Voegtli of Project Connections leads off with a link to a Slate article review of the new Michael Jackson doc and how certains points described project managers to a T. Who says there was nobody like him? –http://blog.projectconnections.com/project_practitioners/2009/10/michael-jacksons-display-of-key-pm-traits.html
• Ron Rosenhead of his self-titled blog has a past that should have us talking in the PM community – about the inability to decipher what is truly wrong with the Single Payment Scheme recently condemned by the NAO. With a link to an editorial by Computer Weekly, Rosenhead was left to wonder how far from reality spin control can place a company – http://www.ronrosenhead.co.uk/?p=336
• Brad Egeland of Project Management Tips does not want to relinquish that parking space. The Ege once again schools us with reference to Carl Pritchard’s “The Project Management Communications Toolkit” on how proejct managers should deal with the press – http://pmtips.net/project-manager-press-briefings/
• Mark Mullaly, PMP at Gantthead (NOTE: Registration Required) themes a piece around Halloween and the horrors your project may encounter. Don’t run from it scared or dubious: it’s well thought out, relatable and written exeprtly. Which the PMP designation should have given away in the first place! – http://www.gantthead.com/article.cfm?ID=252519&authenticated=1
• Ron Holohan at pm411 hosts experienced PM, engineer and president/co-founder of Intaver Institute Lev Verine for a podcast about event chain project management. Ever the helpful Chicagoan, Holohan enhances the experience by featuring articles that accompany the podcasts like study guides – http://pm411.org/2009/10/24/podcast-episode-049-event-chain-project-management/

Tweeter to Watch: @BackFromRed – Todd Williams is a project audit and recovery specialist (primarily IT and manufacturing) who has reached must-follow status on my TweetDeck. If your stuff is sound, he’ll re-tweet you. But he’ll also compliment your work by pointing to other things project managers need to know – this week he alerted us to making changes during a project recovery, developing a Professional Development curriculum at Portland State University, and even injected some humour with the increasingly common phrase “itshouldbeillegal”:

‘…Thought it meant “IT should be illegal.” Now that’s a way to curb IT failure.’

Shameless Arras / Camel Plug: If you want some help in your search for a job, last week was a good week to peruse How to Manage a Camel. In the past, we’ve remind you of our collaboration with the JobCentre Plus on the JobSearch Support Services, but in the past few weeks we’ve also handed out some of that advice, practically giving away our expertise in exchange for your patronage and the expressed reading consent that you’ll take it all on board. How can one pass up our own John Thorpe willfully offering ways to succeed in a job interview, for instance? Or take Friday, when Lindsay Scott talks about the perfect cover letter?

Your application will be rejected for a number of reasons; bad CV, location is wrong, salary expectations too high, experience not right for the job etc etc. No one has ever been rejected because they included a cover note!

So why should you invest the extra 2 minutes to include a cover note that says more than just see my attached CV, Im interested in the post xxxxx?

Well, 90% of applicants dont bother with a cover note. Thats 90% who are not bothered about job application etiquette, manners, professionalism, call it what you want. So that leaves 10% who are actually getting the whole process off on the right foot, setting the scene, introducing themselves professionally.

I know that I would like to be within the 10%. 10% have created a good first impression and we all know what is said about first impressions.

If you apply for a position which has a pretty clear job specification, including the roles and responsibilities, location and salary package we have something to work with for our cover note.

The cover note doesnt have to be a mass of words and it definitely shouldnt be a cut and paste of details from your CV. All it needs to be is a clear and concise understanding that you read the job description and that you believe you meet most of the key criteria

The key criteria includes not only the main roles and responsibilities listed but also any other items which you think the reader of the CV might have objections about.

Objections are things like, youre applying for a job in Wales but you live in London, you should mention in the cover note that you note the role is in Wales and you are looking to relocate. This shows the reader that youve (a) see this (b) acknowledged it (c) put their minds at ease that they can still include you in the shortlist if everything else is stacking up. Another objection might be the salary indicated. If the salary is shown i.e., £45-55K, in your cover note you can state, I have noted the salary banding indicated and am happy to proceed with my application

Of course, the obvious reason why a cover note is used is to introduce yourself, very briefly, to the recipient, is to show straight away that you meet the criteria in the job description. The key is to analyse the description and pick out the obvious top criteria and then present in bullet form what you bring. You have to keep the bullet points short and to the point. No long winded point is going to hit home. You MUST also make sure that your CV clearly shows the key points youve listed in the bullet points. If you state in the cover note that you have experiences of managing projects up to £10M in size, make sure its clear in the CV where and when you did this.

Theres nothing like a damp squib of a cover note/CV combo that are not in tune with each other to really annoy a potential employer and when that happens, your details go to the bottom of the pile.

So just to restate, I said this should only take an extra 2 minutes of your time in the job application process, and it does, if you do it regularly. It takes practice to pick out the key points quickly. Keep a template of a cover note which you just change each time you apply for a new vacancy. This template should only be used to remind you of the layout and not for just sending out without changes, otherwise it just becomes a pointless cover note.

Finally, heres an example job specification and cover note;

dldt
blockquotestrongPMO Planning Manager Location:London Salary:£42000,00 – £50000,00 per year/strong

PMO Planning Manager required to join hugely successful public sector programme within a large IT Services organisation in London. We are looking for experienced Programme Planners with resource management skills from an IT outsourcer/managed services background.

The PMO Planning Manager will have the following experience:

+ Significant experience across a number of contracts supporting/ managing project/programme offices with 3rd party suppliers within an IT/web/ e commerce/outsourcing environment.
+ Programme and project planner roles, using MS Project and resource pools across multiple plans
+ Experience in implementing of planning tools
+ Project/programme management within the IT industry.
+ Management and analysis of risks, issues, dependencies
+ Project and programme reporting
+ Demonstrated outstanding capabilities – understands issues of facilitating project teams to deliver on time, quality and budget to client.
+ Builds lasting relationships with internal team and external partners.
+ Accurately plans, prioritises delivers; excellent attention to detail
+ Able to think beyond and outside the status quo and effective self starter/proactive
+ Not constrained by hierarchy; prepared to challenge/blockquote
/dt/dlCover note example:

Dear Sir/Madam

Please find attached my CV for the strongPMO Planning Manager /strongrole as advertised on xxxxx on the 22nd October 2009

I am based in London, am available to commence a new appointment on the XXXXXX and have noted the renumeration of £42K-50K which falls within my salary expectations

My previous experience in PMO Management has combined both the IT and public sectors and I bring the following experience and expertises to the advertised role:
ul
liPMO Management within commerical organisations specifically outsourcing/li
liProgramme management level planning abilitiy, tools included MS Project and Primavera/li
liPlanning skills include creation and maintenance of plans, WBS, resource utilisation etc/li
liFull programme / project lifecycle experience including planning, reporting, resourcing, issues, risks and hands on programme level support/li
/ul
I look forward to hearing from you about the next stage of the process

If you have any further experiences or comments to share on the success (or failure!) of cover notes, let us know by leaving a comment below

Sii Preparato! Or in English, be prepared! Such a simple statement, on which many hundreds of thousands of words have been committed to print, but one that is quite often overlooked! As project professionals we spend our lives planning, managing risks and reacting to situations in front of “clients” be they internal or external. This skill should put us at an advantage when it comes to performing at interviews, but we should also recognise that it may also raise the bar in terms of what the interviewer expects!

As part of the preparation, I have the following three elements which I believe are a fundamental to a good interview.

Think STAR: This is a favourite amongst the team at Arras People – Situation or Task; Action you took; Results you delivered. Applying the STAR Technique to key achievements and successes in your career to date, you will have a bank of clear stories ready for use at an appropriate time during an interview; sometimes regardless of the question! The STAR Technique again should help emphasise what you have achieved in a context that is appropriate to the role you are interviewing for.

By looking again at the job specification – the first few bullet points on the spec are normally the most important aspects to the role. You can take each point in turn and think STAR again. Pinpoint in your CV and career an example that could be used to highlight your understanding, experience, skills, competency and training against a requirement in the job specification.

You not the team! Whilst working in team environments we are constantly reminded that “there is no I in team” which in its place is fine. However, I see this mindset far too often when talking to candidates in interview situations. It is worth remembering that in an interview situation you are the subject matter, you have been offered an interview and the interviewer is interested in how your skills and experiences would be applied to the role. This is your opportunity to build your credibility and suitability; focus on “I”, the use of “we” should be kept to a minimum.

Strengths and Weaknesses: We all have them and many interviewers use this questioning angle to get a feel for the “real you”. I am continually amazed how many people expect this question in an interview, yet after a short nervous chuckle, remain unprepared to give a suitable response. The strengths seem easy, reign in your ego and try to align a response with the requirements of the role; possibly referencing what you have learned during the interview.

Weaknesses tend to be harder; we all have them (even the interviewer) but worry that we will expose ourselves in a negative light if they are shared. However, recognition of weaknesses highlights self awareness and thus it is possible to frame a weakness in a positive light by explaining how you recognise and address them. On both counts, whilst being prepared, do not over work your answers so they sound rehearsed. 

And finally, when you arrive, be yourself! Personally I am not convinced that an interview is the right time to re-invent yourself. Changing jobs can be pretty stressful at the best of times without the added pressure of remembering that you sold a whole new you to a prospective employer!

This article has been reprinted from the October issue of Project Management Tipoffs, the project management issues newsletter from Arras People. To go to the original printing of this article, click here. To see the entire issue, go here. To subscribe to Tipoffs, click here.

These can be private sector corporates or public sector organisations – the thing they have in common is that they employ a lot of people in a multiplicity of teams, groups, divisions, departments and operational and business units.

The simple conclusion is one that many have come to before us: an organisation cannot improve its performance by simply introducing new systems and processes. The desired benefits don’t come from the new processes, nor do they lie at the door of the project manager, or even the chief executive (although his role is crucial). They come from the changes its people make to the way they work.  

But people have to think differently before they behave differently. The key is how to get people to think differently.

Peter Duschinsky's new book, The Change Equation, is available for pre-order at Amazon. Click on the image to find out more.

John Seddon, the systems guru, would argue that behaviour is a product of the system you put people in. He says people are not naturally idle and devious, it’s the command-and-control approach to management that assumes they are – and so they become so. To a great extent I think he is right. You only have to compare organisations which have empowered their people with those that measure and control every aspect of the workflow to notice the fundamental difference in pace, enthusiasm and sense of shared purpose that comes across from the moment you walk into the offices.   

And people in the organisation will only begin to think and behave differently if they are given the leadership and opportunity to do so – in other words, it’s the top management team that has to start thinking differently, before the rest will follow. So to return to the proposition: the key is how to get the top management team to think differently.

Seddon would, at this stage, argue strongly for the introduction of a systems approach, which requires a re-assessment of the whole approach to meeting customer needs and designing processes around that. As a ‘jobbing’ consultant, proposing such a revolutionary solution to most clients just isn’t feasible. So although we might agree with the power of systems thinking to achieve a real sea-change in customer satisfaction and the organisation’s performance, the reality is that most clients will demand a ‘business as usual’ approach. 

That does not mean we should give up on the key question: how to get people – and specifically the top management team – to think differently. One approach which I am now using with clients, is to carry out an assessment of the complexity of the project in the context of the organisation’s capability to accommodate change. This uses a Project Readiness Assessment toolkit based based on a methodology we call INPACT (Integrated Process and Culture Transformation).

INPACT addresses the dual core of a change project: processes and people, and uses a set of models and tools to quickly identify the underlying causes of actual or potential failure of a project. The output from this assessment is used to work with senior managers to shift their thinking about how to achieve the benefits they need: efficiency, cost savings, improved quality of service, etc.

The first model we use is the Management Culture model, which describes the dominating management style of an organisation (or at least that part of the organisation being assessed). The model is based on the realisation that there is an underlying tension between the individual and the organisation which affects every aspect of the way that organisation works; its management culture and its capability to introduce – and take advantage of – change. The nature of this tension needs to be understood, brought out and dealt with, if we want to change the way the people in the organisation think and behave – and be successful in bringing about change and improvement.

Seddon’s systems approach sensibly looks at the workflow from outside-in and gives far more responsibility to the people closest to the customer (internal or extrernal) for management of the variety of decisions that need to be made to achieve high customer satisfaction first time around. But he doesn’t focus directly on the people, their needs and aspirations, their attitudes and motivation, which is the purpose of the Management Culture model. If you do that, it is easy to spot misalignment and disempowerment – two indicators of potential barriers to success when implementing a change project.

Consider, in your own organisation, your responses to the following three statements:

If you scored less than 6 out of a total of 12, you may need to pay attention to the lack of trust that will slow down any project that seeks to introduce changes to the way people work in your organisation. A score of 3-4 indicates a significant problem which will almost certainly stop a change project in its tracks!

This set of questions is only one of the inputs that we feed into the Management Culture model to help us understand where the barriers to change will lie. The model also points to the approach to take in order to shift the way people think and behave. But looking at management culture is only the starting point. We also need to look at the capability of the organisation to manage its processes.

Brett Champlin and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University developed a generic 5-step Capability Maturity Model to describe process management capability, which allows us to map this very effectively. An organisation with a low level of process capability is unlikely to be disciplined enough to be able to  standardise processes across the organisation effectively.

The interesting finding is that an organisation’s management culture and its process capability maturity correlate quite closely in many organisations. In this sense, Seddon is absolutely right: the behaviour of people is a product of the system you put them in. An organisation which has an aligned and empowered workforce is likely also to have introduced standardised and efficient processes, which are being used consistently by everyone to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction. By contrast, if the organisation is inward-looking and bureaucratic, its people will be focused on meeting imposed performance targets, rather than working together to meet the needs of their customers.

Changing this behaviour must start with a change in how the organisation manages both its people and its processes. And that means that senior level managers have to start to think differently and involve their people in planning, implementing and ‘owning the changes. This is not revolutionary, but it is transformational. And we regard most change projects of any size as transformational – and not simple.

Which brings me to the third key model in the INPACT toolkit, which looks at the complexity of the project. We measure this and map it against the organisation’s management culture and process capability to come up with an indication of how successful we think the project will be in coming in on time and within budget, and how well it will deliver the planned benefits.

Typically, a project that is more complex than anticipated by its sponsors will exceed the capability of the organisation to achieve the necessary changes in people’s behaviour. However, with the insights that INPACT can bring, senior managers can put in place the actions needed to overcome the barriers to success, whether they are more appropriate resourcing, better benefits realisation planning, greater involvement of customer-facing people in the design and implementation of the changes, or even (as has been the case on a number of occasions) a parallel initiative to develop a more mature, knowledge-sharing and empowered management culture.   

Or in other words, start thinking differently.

Peter Duschinsky has worked as a management consultant for over 30 years that has specialised in the findamentals and promotion of Best Practice solutions. His new book, The Change Equation, sets out the principles of the INPACT methodology – you can find it on Amazon from mid-November. You can download exerpts from his website. He can be contacted at peterd@imaginist.co.uk.

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