Taskforce Membership
The ECI Executive Board has sanctioned the launch of a new ECI Taskforce, the People Taskforce, to be chaired by Tony Maplesden, Head of Project Management- Major Projects, AMEC – Power and Process (UK and Europe)
The taskforce already has a core team in operation made-up with representatives from AMEC, Kingsfield International, WSP CEL, ECI HQ and the University of Leeds, UK. The core team is undertaking a questionnaire survey of the ways in which ECI members currently develop the competencies within their workforce to effectively develop complex projects. The results of this survey will be presented at the Taskforce Launch
Terms of Reference
The terms of reference of the Taskforce are to identify best practice, create new knowledge and to support its use in order to:-
- attract and recruit people
- train and develop people
- appraise and reward people
in the European Engineering Construction Industry to enable the effective delivery of projects
Formal Launch
The taskforce which was recently launched reviewed the starting point of an individual leaving school and concluded at the point at which that individual was fully capable of successfully delivering a complex project. Individual organisations who represent ‘best-practice’ along this lifecycle (from ECI members and beyond) also presented their own experiences. Many of those who attended the event have now joined this task force.
The Reality of CPD in Project Management
The survey of CPD by ECI and Leeds University has already yielded some interesting interim results.
- Organisations are saturated with mid-career project managers who have had little to no formal career planning or development
- Transitioning construction organisations (those moving up the value chain) appeared to have the most diverse collection of PM CPD but also a strong focus on embedding new processes;
- Professional service organisations (i.e. multi-disciplinary consultancies) had somewhat sporadic project management training which was attributed to PM as a second career
- Many of the participant organisations may be neglecting to provide any advanced project management development.
Very few organisations are checking to see if they get value from CPD. The majority of the organisations surveyed struggled to provide any evidence of learning. Often simply throwing money into a ‘black hole’, being unable to quantify, qualify or even attribute staff improvement or performance back to the training interventions. Few of the participants interviewed acknowledged their organisation provides further training assessment than a form of ‘reactionnaire’. Select participants alluded to attempts to link training to results or business performance, while only one claimed to evaluate the behavioural dimension. Many of the project participants recognised the lack of formal and/or objective training assessment as a relevant issue but revealed they were in not in a position to be able to comment on return on investment of the existing training interventions.
For further information on the People taskforce please contact eci on +44 (0)1509 222620 or by email on eci@lboro.ac.uk