Article Written by Gwen Miller, PMP
Let’s face it. In the past couple of years, the economy sucks, unemployment is at an all time high since the Great Depression (since I wasn’t there, I have to take the word of the media), and companies are tight fisted with money.
Having worked through several burn downs in the economy in the 70’s, 80’s 90’s (oh, oh……I see a pattern forming here), the one thing I have always noticed is when the going gets tough, and we hear about cut backs and budget trimming, what is the first thing to be cut? OK, besides people.
TRAINING. That’s right. Training dollars, or the entire training budget. It goes out the window. We just can’t afford to send people for training….we need to pay the bills first, training is a frivolous use of capital.
REALLY?? Does anyone in the C-level office really give that a good think? Perhaps this is the best time to train our employees. We are expecting more from them, we should assist them in gaining new skills and abilities, to help us through this financial storm. This may help us come out of the fight stronger than when we went in.
Now that is enlightened thinking. I know some C-levels who think that way, but in my opinion, the majority doesn’t. The majority doesn’t see training as an investment in their Human Capital. Why is that so hard to imagine?
It might be due to the fact that until recently, employees were never thought of as an asset. What an oversight!! This is the one asset, when treated right, will provide better return on your investment than any asset in your organization.
So now you are asking, what does all of this have to do with Project Management? It has to do with providing your PM’s with the training needed to improve performance. Performance of the PM, the performance of the project team, the performance of the project itself.
As PM’s skills and abilities grow, so does the performance of the project portfolio. Having the wherewithall to lead projects that meet success criteria (defined during your planning process with the stakeholders and project team) will add business value. They will have a positive, direct, impact to the P&L of the company.
Since a larger percentage of a company’s budget is spent to hire and maintain human capital, why not invest in those assets to grow your company and its bottom line.
While I was writing this observation, I was wondering if anyone had done any analysis or research on value received for PM training spends. Voila! I came across a study conducted by the project management firm, PM Solutions (disclaimer: I do not work for or with them).
Two things from the study that got me thinking 1) The considerable change for the better the firms surveyed reported in project and business performance because of project management training, and 2) that instructor-led classroom training was the most used and most effective method of training.
I found this to reflect my own thinking. Why??
Well, being away from the job, the PM can focus their energies on the training; consider what they are learning (not only from the instructor but other PM’s in the class) and how it may apply to current projects.
PM’s have the opportunity to practice what they are learning through completion of exercises built into the training to solidify how to apply the skills, and being a part of a team going through the training project, glean tips and techniques from their team mates. (C-level’s know the value of networking, why not others in their organization?)
This is what makes instructor-led classroom training so valuable, the PM’s return to the project not only with knowledge but with actual application of the knowledge through those practice exercises. The organization can begin to realize their ROI from the training investment immediately.
So the next time your leadership is thinking about cutting the training for the PM’s in your organization, influence (another project management skill) your boss to understand the impact that has to the success of the project portfolio ROI and the company’s bottom line.
It makes me think, is it only a chosen few executives (like the ones surveyed in the study) that get the correlation between skill improvement (training) and the positive impact to the bottom line?
© 2011 Gwen Miller, PMP
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