APM Blogs

The theme of the 2025 APM Conference is Projects for a Better Future.

In a ‘first of its type’ event for APM, breakfast with 17 industry leaders in the PPM world tested the latest APM research on Conditions for Project Success as a part of our journey to APM’s vision statement: ‘A world in which all projects succeed’.

Every few months the soft versus hard skills debate resurrects in the pages of Project magazine.

Throughout the run up to the spring budget the traditional rumour mill predicting unreserved spending on new legacy projects has been somewhat muted due to the ‘steady as she goes’ approach of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond.

This week I saw that the Introductory Certificate was now available online what an achievement for the APM! Of course, this forms part of Strategy 2020 making APM products available to a wider range of people through an increasing number of channels.

It is a debate that I have come across on a number of occasions during my time as Project magazine editor which are more successful, public or private sector projects?Private sector projects are more customer focused, whereas in the public sector there is more emphasis on economy more bang for your buck.

How we work and communicate has changed radically in recent years, with significant numbers across society, including within the project management profession, now using devices that mean we can be in contact and carrying out work and other activities, 24/7, instantly and unrelentingly.

When a business case is put together for a project it’s common for any barriers to the change to be discussed, but most often this is focussed on the tangible elements like costs.

We walk a careful line between control and interference.

Why control a project? Projects are simple aren’t they? Have a plan, stick to the plan, achieve the plan… what’s hard about that…? Well how long have you got? Projects have been around for as long as we as a human race have been thinking up new ways to better our environments; from the great pyramids of Egypt, to man setting foot on the moon, these ground-breaking endeavours are some examples of mankind’s greatest projects.