Personal resilience: Rising to the challenge of project management

This People SIG event will draw parallels between effective project management and the resilience of the project team.  We aim to discuss an emotive topic with a degree of objectivity that will allow our participants to take away an approach to workplace stress and implement sound and logical measures to enhance resilience.

The day will be an opportunity for project management professionals to learn more about dealing with adversity; exploring the causes and signs of work-based stress, and understand how to increase the ability to overcome issues in order to achieve success.

Through a series of experienced speakers, the event will:

• Present case studies and you will learn about the field of resilience
• Encourage openness and debate of a subject that is often ignored in the workplace
• Give you the opportunity to learn what factors affect our resilience as individuals / teams
• Help you to identify coping strategies that can be implemented to build resilience, and prevent or reduce stress

1. Strengthening personal resilience in times of stress - a practical session

Resilience is the capacity to mobilise personal resources to form an attitude to tolerate and overcome adverse events without experiencing stress, and to increase psychological immunity as a consequence of such events.   Some aspects of resilience are personality dependant whilst others are skills determined.  All elements can be learnt and strengthened.

This workshop will focus on personal prevention techniques, approaches and behaviours through a variety of practical exercises and techniques.  Building resilience will help ensure that you remain motivated, engaged, committed and able to perform at your best through periods of uncertainty and change. 

Professor Derek Mowbray is a Chartered Psychologist, a Chartered Scientist with a doctorate in leadership, and a visiting Professor of Psychology at Northumbria University. Dr Mowbray focuses on the behaviour of leaders and managers in relation to their employees, and helps them to develop the behaviours that encourage commitment, trust and staff engagement. Derek’s
techniques include problem focused coaching, cognitive coaching, group work and consultancy.

2. The nature of resilience

This presentation will

• Discuss the complexities of resilience as a concept
• Consider personality as a contributing factor
• Explain the rationale, origins and measurement of the Risk-Type Compass™  personality tool
• Describe the eight Risk-Types and their relevance to resilience
• The relationship between risk tolerance and resilience
• Our research; ‘Risk-Type, stress and employee engagement’
• Discuss a range of potential applications and practical solutions

Geoff Trickey is Managing Director of Psychological Consultancy Ltd.  He is a Chartered Psychologist with a BSc in Psychology and an MSc in Educational Psychology from UCL.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and devotes much of his time to research-based consultancy and innovative internet-based product development. Geoff’s varied professional life has spanned educational, clinical and occupational psychology.

3. Change causes stress – so what hope is there for project managers

Looking at definitions of stress, it doesn’t take long to see that most of them firmly associate stress with change. So what are the implications of this for project and change managers, who are the drivers of change and also the people that regularly deal with ‘the unexpected’.

In this session, Ranjit Sidhu will look at a number of models that provide frameworks to help us avoid unnecessary stress; for ourselves, for our teams and for the organisation as a whole. Using the Titanic disaster as a case study, she examines what can happen when these processes are overlooked.

Ranjit Sidhu – A skilful trainer, facilitator, and change management consultant with over 20 years’ experience on projects spanning Europe, North America and Africa. Ranjit is an accredited trainer for the Change Management Practitioner, Agile Project Management and PRINCE2® qualifications, a certified trainer of NLP, and an Assessor for the APM Practitioner. Her book ‘Titanic Lessons in Project Leadership’ was published earlier this year.

4. How to be a successful failure

Everyone experiences failure, we don’t like it, and we see it as “A Bad Thing”. This presentation explains why that is the wrong conclusion, and offers a structured response to failure, drawing on the presenter’s many years of experience as a successful failure.

Discover the underlying characteristics and multiple dimensions of failure. Explore the links between success and failure through the Success-Failure Ecocycle. And learn the secret of the KOKO Factor to develop resilience at personal, project, organisational and societal levels.

Dr David Hillson – Known globally as The Risk Doctor, David is recognised internationally as a leading thinker and expert practitioner in risk management, and he writes and speaks widely on the topic.  David is an Honorary Fellow of the APM and a Fellow of the Project Management Institute (PMI®). He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management (IRM), the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), and the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

Body of Knowledge reference (5th edition) Section Description 7 People and the profession