What will it take for the C-suite to embrace project management?

Do senior leaders in most organisations today really understand enough about what project management is and, more importantly, the strategic value that project professionals can bring? And, if not, will the profession ever execute a similar trajectory to that taken by its peers in HR and marketing, achieving representation on the executive board?

Plans and sprints

Neal Misell is Chief Executive, Mission Systems, at British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company Babcock International Group. He talks passionately about the transformative effect that strategic, high‑level project management has had on the business, courtesy of Chief Delivery Officer Donna Sinnick – the first project professional to sit on Babcock’s board.

Project management in the business used to be much more about procedural bureaucracy and theory, rather than driving growth and transformation, he says.

“There was a period when projects were just seen as quite a lot of paperwork,” Misell reports. “You had to do some sort of project initiation document and then people were saying: is it deterministic or probabilistic? You found yourself doing that for the smallest of things, and then it’s overkill – people switch off.

“But now nobody would even consider that you didn’t need really effective programme management in what we do – that sort of analysis that can give you the ability to predict and respond to things.”

Cruising through

James Cole, CEO of Panache Cruises, has enjoyed a similar epiphany in the context of his business. While, as an SME, the company doesn’t employ any dedicated project professionals, Panache has worked with an expert consultant to unlock the strategic potential of the discipline.

“From our point of view, as soon as we understood it, we could see the value,” reports Cole. “Now, we have 90‑day plans and two‑week sprints which enable us to overlay project work on top of the day‑to‑day demands of the business – so people are prioritising projects that take the business forward for the medium to long term.

“It was definitely an education. We realised we need to make sure that all people at senior and board level have got the necessary skills to be able to manage things from a project perspective,” he adds.

Chicken and egg

But, unfortunately, Cole and Misell may well be part of an enlightened minority. APM research has found that only 16% of business leaders see project management as strategic. Project or programme professionals holding a C‑suite position is still a relative rarity, says Sue Kershaw, Senior Vice President, Programme Executive, at AECOM and former APM President.

There are certainly “not enough – and more in the US than in the UK”. But this is at businesses’ peril, she says. “This is a significant issue, as programmes are moving to multi‑billion values, and if not successful, can take companies down,” says Kershaw.

Emphasising the vital symbolism of having a project professional on the board, Misell points out that it can feel a bit ‘chicken and egg’: there are no highly visible senior project professionals in a company, so people assume this isn’t an area that is taken seriously, so they move into other specialisms to advance their careers.

“When we didn’t have a Chief Delivery Officer, you looked across the managing directors, of which we’ve got about 20, and I don’t believe any of them came from a programme management background. That’s signalling that the business values programme management in so far as you can get, but it doesn’t look like a pathway where you can get to the top table,” Misell says. He adds that he suspects Sinnick’s presence on the board is helping the business attract a higher calibre of experienced, talented project professionals.

The right balance

What definitely matters, all agree, are the barriers currently holding back understanding within the C‑suite. Some are not necessarily in project managers’ control, muses Wayne Clarke, whose roles as a founding partner at The Global Growth Institute and CEO of World Class Manager have seen him work with more than 700 CEOs and boards globally.

The key to really contributing strategically is being involved in the right conversations at the right time. But similarly to HR, say, project professionals often don’t get the chance to contribute until an overarching strategy is set in motion, and so have much less opportunity to use their expertise to (diplomatically) point out it’s the wrong one in the first place.

“That would be a massive area of value‑add, to empower project managers to engage much sooner in the strategy‑setting process with the C‑suite,” says Clarke.

The problem, adds Kershaw, is that not many C‑suite leaders understand the full potential of programme management, as distinct from project management. “They get project management and the structure this provides for delivery, but programme management takes this to another level, focusing on more than outputs, outcomes, benefits and societal change,” she highlights.

“Strategic risk management, systemic thinking and progressive assurance are important ways of thinking that programme managers can use to bring this to life for the C‑suite and help them focus on the end game.”

Bridging the gap

Speaking at APM’s recent Windsor Project Summit, Andrew Schuster, Managing Partner at The Promoveo Group and Visiting Professor at SKEMA Business School and Cranfield School of Management, said that educational support, such as mentoring, can be an effective way to bridge knowledge gaps.

“When mentoring, it’s important to build trust,” he said. “Sponsors and executives don’t want to look like they don’t know what they’re talking about. [So] acknowledge that there’s always that discomfort. Find a ‘safe’ way of bringing things to them.”