7
USING THE PMCD FRAMEWORK IN AN ORGANIZATION
7.1 Overview
This section explores the critical factors that need to be in place to help support a successful implementation and adoption of the PMCD Framework, together with some examples. The PMCD Framework may be used to ensure that the organization's portfolio, program, and project management capabilities are aligned with the needs of the business. There may be specific considerations and competences that are considered to be more important than others. This prioritization should not be overlooked, along with competences that are specific to the organization. Reference should be made to PMI's Talent Triangle™, whereby PMI's Pulse of the Profession® In-Depth Report: Talent Management states that success is reinforced by not only project technical management, but also leadership and strategic and business management skills (see Figure 7-1). Developing competences in these areas is a significant factor in how successful a project manager is. In the Pulse of the Profession® Report on Navigating Complexity [13], 75% of organizations state that leadership is the most important aspect or competence to have as the complexity increases. Performance competence covers technical project management and is essentially the application of the core Knowledge Areas of the PMBOK® Guide. Whereas the application of personal competences is more associated with the leadership side of the Talent Triangle, business and strategic knowledge and expertise concern the specific skills, experience, and competencies that a portfolio, program, or project manager needs in order to deliver positive business outcomes for the organization.
Section 6 details the process from capturing competency requirements through performing the assessment, to creating and implementing a development plan. However, this is only successful when the organization has both the desire and the appropriate environment in place to support this. The organization needs to ensure that its portfolio, program, and project management capability is optimized for the types of programs and projects that it undertakes. This may result in additional competences that are specific to the organization. These can be considered supplementary to the personal competences, as described earlier.
Some of the key benefits to the organization of implementing a competency framework include, but are not limited to:
• Motivated portfolio, program, and project management community;
• Individuals who have an understanding of their development needs;
• A community of portfolio, program, and project managers who are better placed to provide maximum value to the organization and serve the needs of the business;
• An organization that is better placed to not only attract the best talent, but also to retain the talent; and
• Individuals who are able to be assigned and aligned with the most appropriate opportunities, commensurate with their competences and development needs.
Ultimately, it also helps to ensure that core portfolio, program, and project management knowledge is put into practice in the most effective way.
7.2 Application of the PMCD Framework
The framework is designed to be used by organizations of any size where portfolio, program, and project management disciplines are essential to the success of the business or operation. However, the organization needs to first understand and appreciate that there are a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration.
7.3 Assess Readiness for Deployment
The organization has to appreciate and understand the importance of project management (which includes program and portfolio) competence. There needs to be an appropriate portfolio, program, and project job code and job family in place, with suitable role descriptions and demarcations between various levels. This should be aligned to and in accordance with existing human resources procedures covering promotion and performance reviews.
Once there is a job family or equivalent in place for portfolio, program, and project management, an exercise should be undertaken to align the job family in accordance with the needs of the business as follows:
• Entry-level project manager,
• Project manager,
• Experienced project manager,
• Program manager, and
• Portfolio manager.
These roles could be again subdivided further, for example, with both entry-level and experienced program and portfolio manager levels. Each level within the job family should include details of the elements in Table 7-1.
Table 7-1. Details to Describe Project, Program, and Portfolio Levels
| Element | Description |
| Responsibilities | Specific and key tasks to be undertaken by the role |
| Experience | Is to be measured by achievements in terms of previous projects, programs, or portfolios, managed. The benefits and value achieved and complexity managed should be described |
| Knowledge | This may include an understanding of processes, methodologies, and procedures and can be specific to the organization as well as to generic project management disciplines |
| Skills | These should be demonstrated by documented and witnessed evidence of the delivery of positive results and outcomes |
| Education | This should include formal qualifications and educational certificates, as well as the appropriate PMI certifications and any others that may be industry- or domain-specific |
| Competence | These are classified as personal or performance and are described in Sections 3, 4, and 5 of this PMCD Framework |
7.4 Performance Review
Most organizations have a process for assessing and providing feedback on the performance of an individual. This may or may not be linked to a promotion and/or compensation review process. In either case, the human resources organization involved in these processes needs to be in support of the competence framework. Assurance is required that the organization's review process is aligned to and not in conflict with the framework. Those individuals from other areas of the business who are not in portfolio, program, or project job roles or job codes will also be required to be aware of and understand the importance of the competency framework. This is especially important when seeking feedback on performance in relation to the organization's review cycle and process. The feedback sought and captured should be such that it can help inform evidence of active competences (as per Section 6).
7.5 Promotion Process
Most organizations have one or more promotion processes. The promotion process will need to be synchronized with the requirements stipulated for the job role and job level. As a result, any existing process will need to be considered and amended in line with the respective, responsibilities, experience, knowledge, skills, and education as mentioned in Section 6.1.2. Evidence of these competences being demonstrated should be sought prior to the authorization of a promotion.
7.6 Recruitment
As far as it is possible, competency assessment should be included as part of the recruitment process. However, this will depend on the interview process that the organization has adopted. It is worth noting that evidence cannot be directly verified, other than through references. However, competences can be partly assessed though role-play activities for certain situational scenarios. This can be done through witnessed behaviors and decisions, and is a useful technique to supplement and inform the recruitment and selection process.
7.7 Implementation
Following the decision by an organization to adopt the portfolio, program, and project management competency framework, there are a number of factors that need to be considered first. These may be specific to the organization in question; however, Sections 7.7.1 through 7.7.10 describe ten of the most critical success factors.
7.7.1 Sponsorship
It is essential within the organization that senior support, sponsorship, and commitment is obtained and that the benefits of adopting such a framework are detailed as they relate to the organization's strategy. Pending the amount of organizational change required, it may be necessary to prepare a supporting business case.
7.7.2 Country and Political Factors
As is often the case with global organizations, some employees are likely to reside in countries that are subject to work councils, unions, and other local and or regional legislation. In such cases, the appropriate consultation will need to take place and where necessary consideration of local arrangements should be made.
7.7.3 Communication and Awareness
In organizations where a competency framework does not exist or where a significant change is required, a promotional and awareness campaign to market and promote internal awareness is going to be essential. Senior management needs to understand the value and importance of the framework and should buy into the concept.
7.7.4 Maturity Assessment
It is recommended to conduct an assessment and subsequent gap analysis of the maturity of the current human resources and organizational processes. PMI's OPM3® and Implementing Organizational Project Management: A Practice Guide should also be referred to at this time. Where there are significant gaps, these should be addressed or taken into account prior to the adoption of the competency framework. This may apply in the case of smaller organizations or organizations with less maturity where not all aspects of the competency framework can be adopted or where it would be inappropriate to do so.
7.7.5 Mentoring and Coaching
There are many different forms of mentoring and coaching; however, the organization should encourage and support all types of mentoring and coaching. Individuals need to be able to select or be assigned a suitable mentor and allowed the time to undertake such activities.
7.7.6 Training and Development
Most organizations have a strategy and approach for training and development. This should be revisited and aligned with the PMCD Framework. Any development plan needs to accommodate competency development and growth in addition to knowledge. Many of the competences for project, program, and portfolio management are also essential for other job families or professions. As such, an organization will need to integrate the entire competency development framework with the other training and development in place for other disciplines. In addition, tools such as role-based training curriculums can prove valuable in helping to guide individuals to the most appropriate training for their current needs and to support their career aspirations.
7.7.7 Reflective Journals
While input from others is essential for identifying gaps and development needs, individuals do need to take ownership of their own careers and personal growth. One way of doing this is for individuals to record and track their own development progress. This can be accomplished in many ways; however, one of the key ways in which this can be done is by using a reflective journal where individuals annotate the development or remedial action that they choose or agree to undertake and where they note the impact and value of what it is that they are now doing differently.
7.7.8 Culture
For large global corporations, the importance of cultural considerations should not be underestimated. The approach to competency development and individual growth can vary significantly from one country and culture to another. When considering deploying a competency framework, all cultural sensitivities should be understood and the appropriate allowances made.
7.7.9 Key Performance Indicators
Organizations should consider defining a number of KPIs to ensure that the organization and the individual teams have the essential competences to manage and deliver its portfolio of programs and projects.
7.7.10 Continuous Improvement
Investing in the project management community through talent development is something that organizations with the best record on project delivery typically do. The recommendation is that organizations should create or develop a strategy that is underpinned by a mindset focusing on continuous improvement.
7.8 Piloting the Critical Success Factors
Once formal commitment to the critical success factors in Sections 7.7.1 through 7.7.10 has been agreed to by various parts of the organization, the chances of a successful implementation increase. For large organizations, it is probably worth considering piloting the approach in a suborganization or country, to identify and address any organization-specific issues.
It is recommended that the organization determines which competences are essential for its business in terms of portfolio, program, and project management. Once this has been accomplished, the organization should revisit this process on an annual basis to ensure that any changes in business needs are reflected in the core competences that are required. Competence development should be viewed as an ongoing activity and not as an activity that is visited only annually or at the time the organization undergoes its performance assessment. Competence development can be accomplished through the use of reflective journals as mentioned previously, but also by using techniques such as role-play and shadowing. In addition, the evidence through the practical application of competence should continually be evaluated and assessed by seeking constructive feedback.
7.9 Examples of Application
This section looks at how the competency framework can be applied. These are, however, just examples, and are not meant to be prescriptive. Organizations should prioritize the competences that are of particular importance to them and map them accordingly.
7.9.1 Mapping Project Management Competences to Organizational Positions
Table 7-2 shows how the roles are mapped to an organization's job codes and the job levels within those codes. However, some organizations have different job code structures; therefore, project management codes may be specific to the domain or types of project that are being managed.
7.9.2 Mapping PMCD Framework Codes to Organizational Job Codes
Figure 7-2 shows a job title of entry-level project manager, in the IT software development business sector. An example of some of the personal competences that may be required are listed together with the proficiency level and its importance to the role.
The required proficiency in a particular competence is based on the examples as shown in Section 2.3.3. An organization needs to give each competence serious consideration as to its importance from a business perspective and the types of projects that it either commissions or manages on behalf of clients. Not all competences necessarily have equal waiting or importance. This also depends on the job levels within the respective project management job family, which in many cases is aligned to the complexity of the projects.
There may also be some additional nonstandard competences that are required for the role. In the example in Figure 7-2, a certain level of understanding of extreme programming techniques would be desirable, but not essential for a junior project manager. This is valuable for identifying and ensuring that project managers have the correct level of competence for their role and is helpful for use as a recruitment aid. However, these are only examples of how the mapping can be done, and it is expected that the mapping would be further expanded to also include the elements detailed in Section 7.9.1.
7.9.3 Mapping Project Management Competences to Organization Training and Development
An organization needs to ensure that it has a mechanism in place to address competence gaps and development needs, once these have been identified. Details of possible competence gaps and development needs are included in Section 6. It is worth noting that many organizations do not consider learning through formal training to be the first or best approach for addressing competence deficiencies. In many cases, mentoring, coaching, role-play, shadowing, and on-the-job training are the recommended training and development activities to pursue. However, where training is deemed necessary or is deemed to be the solution, it needs to be appropriate and matched to the competence.
Figure 7-3 illustrates how a course can be mapped to the competences for a project manager, as identified in Section 3. In this example, the training course for this has two relevant PMCD Framework competences that can be mapped. This type of mapping is essential when individuals are addressing their own development needs.
7.9.4 Mapping Individuals to Competences within the Organization
It is common practice within organizations for individuals to assess themselves against competence criteria. This is a useful means for portfolio, program, and project managers to evaluate where they believe they need to develop compared with what is required for their role.
Using a variation of Table 7-1 the self-assessment rating can be added as an additional column (see Table 7-3). This assessment needs to be accepted as only the view of the individual; however, it should be recognized that an individual does not always know what they do not know or how others perceive them.
7.9.5 Obtaining Feedback to Assess Competences
In addition to the self-assessment, it is recommended that additional feedback and input be obtained. This can be from organizations’ existing performance review process or from a separate activity and should ideally include feedback from managers, peers, and those they work alongside. In any specific area, a comparison is made of individuals’ self-assessments of competence with the perceptions of their managers and others.
The evaluations can include multiple PMCD Framework competences or, in some cases, all of them. In the example shown in Table 7-4, there is a manager's evaluation and two peer evaluations. The average rating is a calculation based on the three evaluations, along with the individual's own perception. In this example, the individual matches the proficiency required for the role.
7.9.6 Collating Competence Ratings within the Organization
The competence ratings provide the organization with the necessary data to help ensure that individuals are assigned to the most appropriate opportunities for them and the organization (see Table 7-5). This could help to address a particular development need that the individual has or it could identify a particular skill or competence that the individual possesses for use in a specific project or role.
Table 7-5. Example of Employees’ Competence Ratings
| Employee ID | Name | Competence Average Match or Exceeded |
| 00001 | Adams, John | 12 |
| 00183 | Williams, Jane | 8 |
| 00232 | Lebowski, Ron | 7 |
7.10 Summary
The guidance in this section is not intended to be prescriptive but is intended to provide an outline of some of the stages and activities that need considered when implementing the PMCD Framework within and across an organization. The value and benefits the framework will increase when the readiness assessment and critical success factors are given due consideration. PMI's Pulse of the Profession® In-Depth Report: Talent Management states that organizations that align their talent management approach with their organizational strategy are more likely to be successful at implementing career paths, developing people, effective recruiting, and assigning individuals to the most appropriate roles.