Project Managers as Senior Executives: Research Results, Advancement Model, and Action

France.

Preface

With this study Russell Archibald and Jean-Pierre Debourse begin the process of addressing a long unanswered question for program and project managers, Can my career path take me to the top of the organization? The findings offer both encouragement and challenge to program and project managers. They also offer guidance to educators and professional organizations such as PMI and perhaps suggest the need for another chapter in the PM Body of Knowledge to help close the gap between program and project manager's experience and skills and those characteristic of senior executives.

In Project Managers as Senior Executives Jean-Pierre and Russ take the reader through their systematic examination of the similarities and differences between program and project managers and how those characteristics compare with senior executives. Along the way they examine differences associated with project-driven and project-dependent companies as well as the impacts of education and career path. The wealth of data suggests that more is yet to be done along a number of important vectors.

In reading this study you will be challenged to rethink the framework within which we develop project and program managers, perhaps positioning them as rungs on a career ladder to senior executive positions, but a ladder with some missing rungs that we must address. Unlike a ladder, however, the path to senior executive will require added skills and experience in several directions, not just one. This work goes well down the path of suggesting what some of those key added skills and experiences may be.

Program and project managers possess many of the key skill sets required by senior executives. The transition to senior executive will require the program or project manager to:

-transition project risk identification, assessment and management to enterprise wide risk management influenced by a broader array of internal and external factors than typically encountered in a program or project setting.

-build on the creative problem solving characteristic of many good program and project managers to the creation of innovative concepts, systems and processes for enterprise level strategic differentiation.

-shift from delivery of well defined fixed deliverables to performance based outcomes that are subject as a minimum to influence from often unknown actors and as a maximum may shift to meet changing stakeholder requirements.

-balance the natural program and project action orientation with one that must sustain certain activities and processes while driving transformational change on other fronts.

-move from a well defined set of generally linear metrics to an environment with an allowable solution set derived from the intersection of measurements along multiple performance axes such as those embodied in the modern corporations growing focus on the Triple Bottom Line

Program and project managers who focus on ensuring cost is less than revenues received will have to focus on growing revenue and margins as they transition to senior executives.

In this study, Jean-Pierre and Russ also identify the importance of power and informal networks in career advancement and achievement, and perhaps cause the reader to pause and think about the steps he must take for career advancement in the longer term.

One area that appears in respondent's answers is the program and project manager's aversion to politics. Is this real? Or is it code to describe missing skill sets related to communication and conflict management (where the call is not yours alone)?

To make the transition to senior executive, today's program and project managers must develop broader skills; interact with the wider environment in new and more strategic ways; and engage and build deeper relations with an expanded internal and external stakeholder set. Jean-Pierre and Russ's study provide encouragement, showing that this is not only possible but that the senior executive ranks include good representation from the program and project management ranks that are not country dependent. Personal qualities such as a strong moral compass and a results orientation that are characteristic of good program and project managers are also key characteristics in successful senior executives.

Project Managers as Senior Executives by Jean-Pierre Debourse and Russell D. Archibald, et. al. is the result of a well structured and executed research effort and another important contribution to the development of the program and project management profession.

Robert (Bob) Prieto

Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Robert (Bob) Prieto is a Senior Vice President for Fluor Corporation, one of America's largest engineering, construction and project management firms where he is responsible for strategy in support of the firm's Industrial & Infrastructure Group and its key clients. He focuses on the development and delivery of large, complex projects worldwide. Prior to joining Fluor, Bob served as chairman of Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. He is a member of the executive committee of the National Center for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a member of the Industry Leaders’ Council of ASCE (formerly the Civil Engineering Forum for Innovation), and co-founder and member of the board of the Disaster Resource Network. He currently serves on the National Research Council's committee framing the challenges on Critical Infrastructure Systems and the National Infrastructure Advisory Council Study Group on Infrastructure Resilience. Until 2006 he served as one of three U.S. presidential appointees to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council (ABAC) and served as chairman of the Engineering and Construction Governors of The World Economic Forum and co-chair of the infrastructure task force formed after September 11th by the New York City Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the board of trustees of Polytechnic University of New York.

CHAPTER 1

Executive Summary

This Executive Summary covers both Volumes I and II of this research report.

1.1. The Purpose of This Research Study

Over the past five decades in the evolution of modern project management there has been little research regarding the career paths of persons working in this field: project planning and control specialists, project managers, program managers, and executives in charge of the project management function within business, industrial, and governmental organizations.

Since its founding 42 years ago, the Project Management Institute (PMI) has been a leader in fostering and conducting the development and application of the project management discipline and related methods, tools, and techniques, plus the publication and acceptance of related standards, advanced academic degrees, training, and certification programs. Over the same period, a number of other professional associations, including the International Project Management Association (IPMA) and others, have contributed to the development of this management field.

PMI has always worked on the definition of the project management profession and the required skills (Roecker, 2007). PMI has a pyramid of all specializations in project management, definitions, respective hierarchies, and related orderings. However, what about the apex of the pyramid where project/program management stops and where strategic management begins?

The purpose of this study is to focus on this interface from a career development point of view.

1.2. Introduction to the Research Project (Chapter 2)

The project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product service or result (Project Management Institute [PMI], 2008, p.5). In any organization, projects are related to strategic movements. The other major activities of an organization are the ongoing, repetitive operations.

A project is a onetime activity whereas operations are repetitive. A project is subject to many external factors, which may cause irreversibility in action. It is a risky activity, often with high creativity, and it takes its place in the history of the organization that bears it. It requires a strong psychological commitment from the people who manage it.

In many different kinds of organizations, specialized managers have appeared; these managers are totally or predominantly devoted to the success of their programs or projects: they are the program or project managers or directors. The scientific and professional community tends to admit that a certain number of skills are necessary to succeed. The skills are as follows: ability to operate in an uncertain universe; leadership and communication; decision making; power and authority; negotiation; conflict identification and resolution; orientation towards results; analytic and holistic perception ability; conceptualization and modeling; vision; personal skills: empathy, courage, charisma, creativity, discipline, and ethics.

When we compare these skills to those required from a functional manager or from a senior executive (including CEO), the conclusion is simple: there is a very close proximity between program and project managers and a senior executive in charge of a company in terms of role definition and skills.

Many authors (see Chapter 9) consider a program or project as a mini company. They often word it as a small company but some projects can be huge, for example, the Channel Tunnel.

Managing a project would then be managing a small company, but the difference is that the project has finiteness. Therefore, either in terms of skills, of difference between projects and operations or of small company projects, we could wonder why one who is efficient in managing projects or programs could not be efficient in managing the whole company.

1.3. Progression of Program and Project Managers to Higher Positions: Answers of the Respondents (Chapter 3)

Career Paths of the Respondents

The main retained conclusions are that at an intermediary level of the hierarchy, project and program managers progress in a quite normal manner towards their superior levels. However, we have few indications on their possible progressions to the top level.

We noticed that project and program managers stay longer in their first positions than the other categories (52.5 months compared to the average of 44.1 months) and in their first functions (107.2 months compared to the average of 71.9 months). The stay is significantly shorter for a senior executive, 68.1 months.

The other main conclusion on the analysis of career paths regarding CEOs biographies is that starting one's career in a high level responsibility position as a first function is far better for progressing upwards later.

Among the respondents, there are very few top executives who could show us how they reached this position. This reflects the fact that few executives answer web questionnaires, which is why we endeavored to conduct face-to-face interviews with CEOs (see Chapter 12).

The survey questionnaire gave a voice to project managers as to their opinions on whether they are prepared for a senior executive function; then as to how they intend to reach this function, particularly by a certain type of education, work experience, or through networks and political actions.

Among skills required for a successful career, soft skills often have a predominant influence. We then asked our respondents to evaluate the proximity between senior executives and program/project managers of soft skills and of the roles components.

A large majority of respondents (88%) stated that project management experience prepares them for a senior executive position, even if it also constitutes a pro domo pleading.

Then the following question was asked: How does experience as a program/project manager prepare you to become an effective senior executive? For the results, we put in parallel the responses of program and project managers on project management experience to prepare them first to reach the senior executive positions and second to work efficiently in the senior executive positions.

Project managers believe that skills coming from experience, and therefore related to the tasks, are more important for getting to a senior executive function, than for exercising it, when soft skills more related to the individual prevail.

Obviously, they also mention the differences (importance of management, role of power and networks, and scope of responsibilities). However, they are often stamped with the positivist paradigm: being successful in program/project management will lead to a senior executive position.

In addition, project managers’ answers provide a confirmation and an internal validation to the research question 1, Does experience as a successful program and project manager prepare a person for Top level executive positions? We already had an external validation of this with the CEOs’ answers in the face-to-face interviews (see Chapter 12).

The Perceived or Preferred Ways of Progression Through a Certain Type of Education

Question 64, Do you believe that having a certain type of education helps get people a promotion to senior executive positions in your company, is controversial. The answer rate is not very high: 62%. Among the respondents, 28.5% consider that continuing a certain type of education does not help to get a promotion; 8% consider that it is not enough. These results are contrary to what the importance of certain types of degrees are in France and in the United States with the MBA. This is shown by the degrees held by senior executives a reported above in Sections 1.5 and 1.8. Graduation from a specific university is not determining in itself, but, as we show in Section 1.5 and later in Chapter 5, the CEOs’ education in the top business or engineering schools is very important.

The main benefits from a particular type of education are more abilities, skills and confidence, knowledge and thinking, business understanding and management, and understanding of finance. The right education is also a factor in a world of competition and developing a role of towards general direction. It is also important to have an education similar to that of the existing senior executives, and this often enhances the possibility to create a network of personal contacts with senior executives in other organizations.

The Perceived or Preferred Ways of Progression With a Certain Type of Work Experience

This field is familiar to our respondents. They consider that work experience better promotes the access to senior executive functions (70%). The three main paths for reaching the top level get quite similar response rates:

31.5% for the expertise in a functional area;

28.1% in an area developed across project management; and

30.1% with an experience as department or division head.

This means that 61.6% of the answers belong to the category that is outside of the areas of project management.

The Perceived or Preferred Ways of Progression Using Networks and Political Actions

Generally, project managers (especially women) as represented by our respondents do not like much political actions. However, they do not ignore that organizations are political places. This is why we have 83% of answers to that question. Nevertheless, they consider it more as development of personal skills linked to political aspects than to proper political actions or to networking. We have grouped the responses in this area into three steps:

The first step is to develop personal skills. The reported areas of development to operate in order to better play the political game are as follows: communication, personal abilities, management skills, organizational analysis, and knowing how to deal with people.

The second step relates to developing networking opportunities and activities: analysis of stakeholders is often mentioned. This second step consists in getting these skills. Having the required skills is good, implementing them is better.

The third step is building the networking activities and acting to belong to the best networks, developing visibility, and relations with senior executives. An old friend, a famous expert in project and program management, with a long experience, maliciously adds ass kissing probably because he never had to practice it.

Soft Skills: Comparison Between Those Needed for Successful Program and Project Managers and for Senior Executives

This is a synthesis of all the soft skills characteristics and importance that were identified in our analyses and reported in our interviews and web questionnaire responses. The objective is, of course, the verification of our research hypotheses:

That leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills needed for senior executives are similar to those needed for successful program and project managers (research question 6).

That there are significant similarities between integrative, and other functions, roles and responsibilities of project and program managers and those of senior executives in all complex organizations (hypothesis 3).

To do this, we took a triple approach:

The issues from the literature (Chapter 9);

The Likert scale questions and answers in the web questionnaire; and

The qualitative answers on this matter.

In literature, we found a strong similarity between skills attributed to senior executives and behavioral, managerial, intellectual, and emotional skills of program/project managers.

In the web questionnaire, we asked our respondents to rank on the one hand skills and on the other hand roles in a decreasing importance, whether they applied to project managers or to senior executives. The items selected either come from literature or from previous research analyses (Archibald & Harpham, 1990; Declerck, Debourse, & Navarre, 1983).

We chose 21 items for skills and 16 items for roles. Each respondent could evaluate each item from 1 (the worst evaluation) to 5 (the best evaluation).

Skills:

In the English questionnaire, the average of the answers is 4.204 for project managers’ skills and 4.280 for senior executives’ skills. In the French questionnaire, the averages are 3.963 and 4.161, respectively.

Roles:

In the English questionnaire, the average is 3.963 for project managers’ roles and 4.50 for senior executives’ roles. In the French questionnaire, the averages are 3.829 and 4.312, respectively.

We noticed that the averages are close, especially for skills, and that the differentiation is bigger for the roles between program and project managers on the one hand and senior executives on the other hand.

Qualitative Answers from the Web Questionnaire

The question was What are the most important skills acquired as a program/project manager that will be most valuable when are given senior executive responsibilities?

Four main categories of soft skills are represented: those belonging to decision making and problem solving; those establishing interpersonal relationships; the intellectual skills; and the personal characteristics.

Among the interpersonal skills, the statements (in decreasing numbers) relate to communication, people management, leadership, team building and management, negotiation, and others.

Regarding the personal characteristics, the main statements refer to moral qualities, personal skills related to the job, sense of priorities, and result orientation.

Eighty percent of the categories of items belong as well to the major themes highlighted in the literature as shown in the overall grid (Chapter 9) and belonging simultaneously to the three analyzed categories: project management professional standards, the experts’ work in project management, and the main literature on senior executives.

We then can make a third verification for research question 6: Are the leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills needed by top managers similar to those needed by successful program and project managers? Our answer is yes, there is a very strong similarity in those needed skills.

1.4. The General Advancement Model and Its Variations According to the Respondents’ Feelings About Their Professional Advancement (Chapter 4)

Chapters 4 and 6 present proposals to enable program and project managers to progress more often to top level. Chapter 4 presents proposals resulting from the web questionnaires responses with the data mainly coming from the English questionnaire. Chapter 6 presents proposals formulated by literature, experts in project management, and ourselves.

The proposals in Chapter 4 are also a result of research, producing proposals established by the web respondents from the development of their work experiences. From these results, we have developed a general model showing the various possible career paths.

The General Model and Its Aspects: This graphical general model is shown in the following, with the overall percentages of responses reported by our respondents as their preferred paths to advancement.

The preferred paths to promotion reported by our respondents have been analyzed in a number of different ways, as listed in the following pages. These results have also been portrayed graphically using the general model shown in Figure 1-1, and these graphical results are shown in detail in Chapter 4.

The possible answers were the following either for project-driven and project-dependent companies (with their percentages¹) from the English questionnaire:

Having expertise in a functional area: project-driven companies, 17.0%; project-dependent companies, 20.8%;

Having expertise in project management: project-driven companies, 26.1%; project-dependent companies, 13.9%;

Having served as head of department: project-driven companies, 20.5%; project dependent companies, 18.9%;

Having expertise in functional area plus project management: project-driven companies, 6.8%; project-dependent companies, 13.8%;

Having expertise in functional area plus head of department: project-driven companies, 11.5%; project-dependent companies, 17.8%;

Having expertise in project management plus head of department: project-driven companies, 2.3%; project-dependent companies, 3.9%; and

The three ways: project-driven companies, 14.8%; project-dependent companies, 10.9%.

According to the country of residence of the respondents, data are the following ²:

Project-driven companies:

Experience