www.ilxgroup.

com

W H I T E PA P E R

Achieving
Business Agility
in the Project
Management
Lifecycle
Achieving Business Agility in the Project Management Lifecycle

EXECUTIVE SUMM ARY

Today’s organisations cannot stand still. Change is the only constant if organisations are to compete and deliver value for money.
The agile approach, born in the software development environment, has now become a buzzword for project management as
executives look to run projects and programmes in a slim, fast and effective way to create an agile organisation.

To achieve agility there is a clear need to underpin the project management lifecycle from end to end with the best people, yet,
as part of the pressure they have been under, organisations have trimmed any spare capacity. There is an increasing tension
between keeping day-to-day activities running while improving business performance.

PEOPLE UNDER PRESSURE

“
Both dedicated project managers and those who have been seconded into project
Both dedicated
management roles are feeling the pressure. When people are deployed temporarily into
projects, alongside their day-to-day job, they can become overwhelmed by their workload project managers
or unclear as to whether the project or their usual responsibilities should have priority. and those who have
been seconded
Organisations that have a major and ongoing requirement for change – such as in
Financial Services, FMCG, Public Sector, engineering, construction and IT sectors – may into project
have dedicated project managers who move from project to project. In this case the management roles
organisation is always looking to maximise its project management resource and puts
project managers under pressure to take on more and more.
are feeling the

”
pressure.

DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES LOST

It is a real challenge for organisations to transform from being inflexible, monolithic entities to becoming agile. The key
is to build in agility at every level, creating a mind-set that gets the best out of people. Employees should be primed to
take any opportunity to learn and develop themselves. Seconding staff from their usual roles and giving them project
management experience can be a really effective route to staff development and allow a company to broaden its skills
base. It is a huge opportunity but many organisations are not making this a formal part of their staff development strategy,
resulting in lost opportunities.

To supplement internal resources many companies recognise the need to tap into an interim or contractor market to access
some strategic skills as and when needed. There is a need to identify the expected return on the project and whether it is worth
bringing someone in with additional skills for a set period to add value. An agile approach would look at whether it may be
possible to plan to gain additional value from an external contractor by building knowledge transfer into the process and agreed
contract, allowing the organisation to learn from the contractor’s experience and gain knowledge that will help in future.

2
Achieving Business Agility in the Project Management Lifecycle

PROJECT M AN AGEMENT LIFECYCLE

T
There are opportunities to enhance business agility by looking afresh R OJEC
at how the organisation approaches every stage of the project EP RES
OURCED?
P R WH
TH NTLY OJ
lifecycle. In simple terms, all project management lifecycles have E

AT CT G
SU IS
I

E
IC

A R OA L S ?
start, middle and end phases.

FF

E TH
EW P
Ph ase 1 – P L A N

LA

E
REVI

N
The Association for Project Management breaks down the beginning

TO F I L L
of a project into two steps: concept – is this a good idea? – and

R E C RTHE M
definition – if it is a good idea how are we going to do it? DO

U I T ISS
The definition phase of a project is very much about assigning

PS C E S
RA

/ T IN
teams, defining skills and identifying resource requirements. IN PR A

I
G
GA
I F Y G
PS
I D E N T OPLE
At the initial conceptual stage, the business sets about writing its & PE
outline business case that looks at whether the change is a good
idea, the budget and the likely payback. A business case should be a
strategic document outlining where the organisation is heading and how this project, however niche, fits in with that. Failure
to document and communicate the intention articulately may result in lost opportunities.

Projects are about people and people requirements interlink with all aspects of project lifecycle. A skills gap analysis mirrors
the project management cycle and starts by identifying where the business is going and what it needs to achieve. It then
analyses the skills and the people the business has and then plans to address the skills gaps with training or plug them with
external resources, be that a permanent hire or contractor.

The agile approach to project management training focuses on identifying opportunities – it is key not to fall into the
trap of thinking things always have to done the same way. Agility is about constantly being aware of the alternatives and
opportunities available to you and how training or recruiting can contribute.

Ph ase 2 – D O
The middle part of any project is the major part of the work to deliver the project. The delivery phase commonly breaks down
into stages, particularly on bigger projects. Each of these stages will repeat the “Plan – Do – Review” cycle but at a greater
level of detail. The recruitment cycle is repeated at each of the stages as it may not be possible to identify all the skills
needed in detail right at the start.

During the lifecycle of a project and programme the focus, is of course, not just what you need

“
here and now but also what you might need at points six months, a year or two years in the In project
future. Recruitment and succession planning is a key part of this – with judiciously applied management there
training it would be possible to train existing staff in new skills, motivating and retaining them, is a big skills
while backfilling some jobs with new recruits.
shortage at
all levels as
The need to be more strategic about people planning has never been greater. The recruitment
confidence returns
market has transformed in recent times, according to the Recruitment & Employment
and everyone is
Confederation (REC) the industry has now surpassed its pre-recession peak. The REC’s

”
Recruitment Industry Trends Survey 2013/14 highlights a shortage of candidates with recruiting.
appropriate skills and experiences as being the key concern for recruiters.

With continued growth in Asia and the Middle East staffing huge projects it is increasingly common for organisations to select
from an international pool of talent which in turn has made competition to secure the best people a global challenge.

3
Achieving Business Agility in the Project Management Lifecycle

Ph ase 3 – R EV I EW
The final stage is about handing over the finished product, closing down the project and reviewing successes and failure.
Project evaluation should result in a clear ‘lessons report’, setting out what the business needs to do better next time.
An effective evaluation has to be comprehensive and honest, not just covering technical and organisational aspects but
also people factors.

The evaluation should cover who did what, who learned what and who was good at their job. The recommendations that
emerge should cover staffing and whether the recruitment or training decisions were the most effective they could have been.

Organisations looking to embed an agile approach should at this point encourage

“
project managers to evaluate individuals and feed back on the performance of Inexperienced project
individuals to their line management. Otherwise the learning and experience managers tend to want the
gained on the project stands to go to waste. This is a major issue – not only
security of throwing the
do organisations lose out on all the knowledge gained but they face difficulties
entire PRINCE2 book at a
retaining people who are simply placed back into their old roles with no
project, but that defeats
recognition of their increased value to the company. In some cases, if someone
the object of getting the
has been on a project for a long time, their previous role may have been filled
by a new recruit. Tuckman recognised this when he added to his project benefits of an agile project

”
management model of ‘forming storming, norming and performing’ a final stage management approach.
of ‘mourning’ – an agile model must enable all kinds of staffing changes.

The fact is that not many post-project evaluations are comprehensive enough, especially in reviewing the people aspects, and
this may be due to time pressures or because organisations simply do not have the necessary evaluation skills. It is advisable
that all the appropriate functions from across the organisation get involved in an evaluation – HR, your recruitment firm and IT
as well as project managers – to ensure a wide-ranging assessment.

M AKING PROJECT M AN AGEMENT AGILE

Agile projects come from very little paperwork, light control, good resources and piles of trust, but organisations still talk
about the need for control. One of the biggest complaints about project management methods, particularly PRINCE2 ®, is that
they are bureaucratic. It is vital to scale project management to suit the needs of each different project. Even the admittedly
hefty PRINCE2 manual has an entire section on tailoring the method to individual projects and cautions that the approach
should not be used in full every time as set out in the manual.

That is a major training issue. Inexperienced project managers tend to want the security of throwing the entire PRINCE2
book at a project but that defeats the object of getting the benefits of an agile project management approach. One effective
approach that some organisations take is to have skilled staff document the minimum requirements and rules for the smallest
projects while still following the PRINCE2 guidelines. If this is flexible it can be scaled up as needed.

Project management in an agile organisation carries

an expectation that you will add detail as the project
and programme progresses through its planned stages.
That way a skills gap analysis can help define proactive
planning for training and recruitment needs that will
enable organisations to source the very best people
at every level and make the most of development
opportunities for current staff.

4
Achieving Business Agility in the Project Management Lifecycle

TO P TI P S F O R HIRING PROJE CT M AN AGERS

1. Plan your hiring as far ahead as possible. Occasionally you will need to be reactive but planning most of your hiring
requirements 6 –18 months in advance will give you greater flexibility to hire the right person at the right time.
2. Don’t hire only on what someone has done previously – look at what you want them to achieve for you.
Recruiting to a ‘person spec’ is like hiring by numbers; past experience is not the only way to judge someone.
3. Focus on soft skills. Candidates’ softer skills are all important. If someone is a better ‘team fit’ but lacks an
element of technical experience over another candidate, choose the better-matched team fit.
4. Get the most out of your interviews with candidates. Project management
interviews should focus on projects delivered – were they brought in on time
and on budget? What was the business objective? Was it achieved? What
were the issues encountered and how did you cope? What did you learn?
A great question to ask is ‘tell me about a project that went off track’.
5. Don’t forget to sell yourself. The recruitment landscape is changing into a
more candidate-centric environment. Candidates will typically have multiple
opportunities to consider. Ensure you are offering a competitive package and
be sure to convey the benefits that your organisation offers.

A bout I L X Group (IL X)

ILX Group is a global all-in-one provider of Best Practice Learning Solutions. ILX delivers Portfolio
Programme & Project Management, IT Service Management, Risk Management and Business Financial
Literacy learning solutions. The Best Practice courses are delivered through a blend of classroom,
workshops, e-Learning and mobile platforms.

ILX is a market leader in PRINCE2 training and has provided Best Practice learning to more than 250,000 people across
5,000 organisations in over 100 countries. ILX works closely with its clients to deliver industry standard qualifications and
helps organisations to deliver continuous workforce improvement. The company and its multi-lingual trainers can support
customers around the world with local offices also in the UK, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. For further information
visit www.ilxgroup.com

About P rog ilit y Re cr u itm e n t

Progility recruitment finds and places talent for business change, project and programme management. Progility meets the
demands of clients asking for the best talent to help them achieve their organisational goals. The specialist team of advisors
offer a range of assessment tools to help its clients with their current
and future workforce requirements, whether it’s for short term contract,
temporary or permanent role. For more information visit
www.progilityrecruitment.com.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman’s_stages_of_group_development
PRINCE2 ® is a registered trademark of AXELOS Limited.