Project Professional of the Year Award

Tier ❺ Individuals

Recognising project professionals in all sectors making a significant contribution to the outcomes and benefits of their project(s) and/or programme(s) through excellent project delivery. 

Successful project professionals drive and lead the creation of an environment that makes things happen. They carefully balance technical and management skills whilst also juggling different views and perspectives, backgrounds and personalities. They progress and focus team performance to deliver benefits to their client and other stakeholders. Judges are looking for project professionals who can demonstrate these skills in abundance to deliver significant project and/or programme benefits. 

This award is open to project, programme or portfolio managers and practitioners of any age, with more than three years’ experience in their project management career.

We require entrants to this category to produce a submission of up to 1,000 words (in English) based on the judging criteria through delivery of a project or programme where their involvement has been greater than six months. Entrants may also submit up to four pieces of supporting evidence - images or graphics only (no text apart from captions). Evidence must support information already included in the submission and must not introduce additional elements. Please see further details on the ‘Supporting evidence’ tab of the Awards platform. Video and audio are not accepted as part of the submission.

The Project Professional of the Year category is a two-stage judging category, the first stage is the written submission mentioned above and the second stage requires all finalists to present virtually to a panel of judges on Tuesday 3 September 2024. 

Project professionals from across the globe may apply. In this category we also encourage nominations (with the individual’s approval) from employers or colleagues. Please note that we can only accept one entry per nominee.

Submit an entry           Entries close 10 June.

Tier ❺ Individuals category criteria

This applies to Project Professional of the Year and Emerging Project Professional of the Year categories. 

Please read the category description and the below criteria carefully before submitting your entry.

Outcomes and benefits | Weighting: 40%

Describe the short- and long-term outcomes and benefits you brought to your organisation through delivery of the project. Did your project/programme achieve what it set out to do in the business case and what part did you play in this? Identify any examples where your influence resulted in the project achieving additional benefits over and above those originally identified. 

Describe the results and benefits you achieved for your project team, paying particular regard to lessons learned and improvements in project management competence, both your own and the team’s. How have you ensured the project team will take these with them to the next project/programme? 

Describe the results and the benefits you achieved for the customer/end user. How did you help ensure the project was successful from their perspective? 

Describe the results and benefits you delivered for other stakeholders. How did you ensure the successful completion of your project/programme benefited the wider organisation and society? Share examples of how you maximised project/programme benefits related to the environment and sustainability. 

Project management | Weighting: 40%

Context:
Describe the background of your project and your role within it. Outline the project structure, governance and expected deliverables. How did you manage the governance of the project to influence its successful delivery? What broad organisational/environmental factors outside of the project had an impact on it, and how did you manage these? 

Capability:
Describe how you informed, motivated and coordinated the project team in order to ensure successful delivery. How did you manage the attitudes, relationships and dependencies within the project team to ensure best use of resources? How did you develop and maintain a professional approach and shared understanding of deliverables with the team and wider stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of the project? 

Delivery:
Describe the methods and techniques you used to effectively manage the planning and delivery of outputs, outcomes and benefits. How did this approach positively impact the project? How did you manage risks, issues and dependencies? What steps did you take to ensure the project was delivered as sustainably as possible, and how did you influence the project/programme’s performance against goals to minimise environmental impact identified at the start? What was the approach to maximising the benefits of inclusivity and diversity of thought, perspectives, and experience in the project work? Did the project deliver on time, on budget and to the required standard and what was your role in achieving this? 

Interfaces:
How did the management of your project interface with other areas, stakeholders, and disciplines? Outline any challenges you faced that needed to be overcome in this area and how you did this. 

Innovation and lessons learned | Weighting: 20% 

Lessons learned: 
What key lessons learned did you capture and share within your organisation and/or project team? What methods did you use to document and share these experiences? How will you ensure these are incorporated into future projects to continually improve performance?   

Managing innovation: 
How did you encourage innovative ideas within your project team? Did you use any innovative project management techniques to deliver the project? Were these innovations completely new to the profession (rather than just your organisation)? How did any innovations used impact the success of your project? Describe how these innovations will benefit the success of future projects, both in your organisation and/or the wider profession.  

Challenges overcome: 
What were the biggest challenges faced during the execution of this project, and how were they overcome? How did these impact the end result? 

Submit an entry           Entries close 10 June.