Overview of APM

Competence Framework

2nd edition and Project

Professional Qualification

APM South Wales and West of England

Branch Meeting

10th May 2016

Colin MacKenzie

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Who am I?

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What I’m going to talk about

Overview of project landscape

Provide a high level overview of the APM Competence framework 2nd

edition

Summarise the benefits it can provide to organisations and individuals

Give you an insight into our new Project Professional Qualification and

how this is aligned to the competence framework

Questions

3

Project management market

Value of projects in the UK: approximately £1.25tr.

62% of projects are under £5m

UK’s 3 biggest projects are worth £50bn

Number of people in project management: 1.5m

95% of people have a low level qualification or no qualification at all

69% of companies are growing and recruiting

Professionalising project management

Clear career frameworks

…that recognise the rounded professional

…that capture people early

…that are easy to understand

…and that are inclusive

APM Professional Development

Framework (in development)

Fundamentals

Management

Professional MAPM

Associate

Competence from

experience

APM Registered Project Professional

Qualifications Membership Experience

Capability v’s Competence

Capability:

“The power or ability to do something”

Competence:

“The ability to do something successfully or efficiently”

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Competence Framework 2nd edition

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Who is aware?

Who has used it?

Why did we need to change?

Previous framework had not been reviewed or updated since 2008

Edition 1 only relevant to Project Managers, not inclusive

Wanted to create a platform to build our product and service proposition

on to support our 2020 Strategy vision

We wanted to respond to customer feedback:

– Extend existing framework beyond just Project Management

– Ensure it becomes more relevant and practical for project professionals

– Ensure it’s flexible enough to integrate into existing frameworks and programmes

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What’s different?

Streamlined and easier to use

– Number of competences reduced from 47 to 27

– Mapped new competence to old ones

Addresses both application and knowledge of each competence

Relevant for Project, Programme and Portfolio Managers and PMO roles

14 new role profiles

New ratings scale

New complexity guidance

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27 competences

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Competence overview

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Ratings scale

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How should you use it?

Review the competences and decide which are relevant to your role

Read the performance indicators for both application and knowledge

then score these holistically

Ask someone else to validate your scores

Measure yourself against a specific role profile

Use the gaps highlighted to develop and build into your PDP and CPD

plan

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Key benefits

Role profiles give you the professional body view of competence and provide a

trusted benchmark

Enables you to make (consistent) comparisons across your PM community

Identifies the differences between professional body benchmark and actual skills

within your organisation

Identify skills gaps and can be used to support professional development plans

Facilitates movement between the four project professional disciplines

Modern Framework that can be used as it is or integrated into an existing

framework

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More information on APM website

Competence Framework now forms part of your corporate membership, so

you should have access to all these resources 16

In summary….

It’s integral to and underpins everything we do at APM

– Basis of all of our new product development

It enables organisations to assess their capacity and capabilities

across the breadth of their different functions

– Enables senior management teams to plan the skills development and

knowledge acquisition strategies in a common way for all delivery teams.

It enables individual project professionals to assess the knowledge

and experiences that they have against the knowledge and

experience they require to progress their career

– Identifies the study pathway that will best suit their individual requirements.

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New APM Project Professional Qualification

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Introduction to new PPQ qualification

Launched on 21st April at the APM conference

It’s a developmental qualification that sits on the route to RPP

– Natural progression from Project Management Qualification

It’s not a direct replacement for the existing Practitioner Qualification,

but it sits in the same space

– The PQ is a retrospective assessment whereas the PPQ takes a

progressive/developmental approach

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“Qualification route”

Progressive route to become a Registered Project Professional

Qualification overview

It’s aligned to APM’s Competence Framework 2nd Edition

It’s been developed as a multi-paper qualification taken in stages

4 modules, each of 3 hours duration with scenario based questions

3 core modules- Professionalism and managing others, Planning

and control and Governance

3 elective modules - Project, Programme and Portfolio management

It provides a progressive “qualification route” to become a Registered

Project Professional (RPP)

It’s been developed by practitioners, for practitioners

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Who should consider this qualification?

• Typically have 3-5 years’ experience as a project professional

• Project professionals who have already successfully achieved the APM

Project Fundamentals and/or APM Project Management qualifications

• Project professionals who want to become full members of APM (MAPM)

• Project professional who want to become Registered Project

Professionals (RPP)

• Project, Programme and Portfolio Managers who have been mapped to

the intermediate levels on the Competence Framework Role Profiles

• Practitioners who have successfully delivered projects

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A mix of core and optional modules

Professionalism

and managing

others

Planning and

control Governance + +

Project

management

Programme

management Portfolio

management or or

APM Project Professional

Qualification

RPP

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Three ‘core’ modules

Professionalism

and managing

others

Planning and

control

Governance

• Ethics, compliance and professionalism

• Team management

• Conflict management

• Leadership

• Risk and issue management

• Schedule management

• Resource management

• Budgeting and cost control

• Governance arrangements

• Stakeholder and communication management

• Reviews

• Change control

• Business case 24

Three ‘elective’ modules

Project

management

Programme

management

Portfolio

management

• Procurement

• Contract management

• Requirements management

• Solutions development

• Quality management

• Transition management

• Financial management

• Resource capacity planning

• Frameworks and methodologies

• Independent assurance

• Financial management

• Resource capacity planning

• Frameworks and methodologies

• Independent assurance

• Asset allocation 25

How have we tested the PPQ

We took a phased approach to launch:

– Proof of concept

– Pre-pilot followed by Full Pilot

Wanted to ensure that the testing was phased, robust and created an effective

learning cycle

Pilot Outcomes

Successful pilot, and confirmed that the PPQ is fit for purpose

Effective communication, stakeholder support and engagement was key

We have been able to successfully test the APM processes

We have had a number of live candidates who passed (and failed)

Pilot candidate quotes

It was an opportunity to drive

me to make time for further

professional development

and be recognised within my

organisation for doing so

Having experience of the

workplace allows you to know

how you would approach each

of the problems posed so in

that respect it is quite realistic

I see the new qualification

as a clear stepping stone

to becoming a Registered

Project Professional

I wanted

external

recognition of

my skills and

experience

I really

enjoyed the

real world feel

of the exam

The PPQ paper was a valid

test of my ability to put theory

into practice. It was a

significant step from

demonstrating knowledge to

demonstrating ability and

competence.

Benefits

Relevant to all project professionals, making it more inclusive

Enables organisations to develop the right skills for the right roles to

improve project success

Enables organisations to demonstrate their commitment to developing

talent across their whole project community

Provides individuals with structured personal development solutions

Enables individuals to engage more effectively with peers and clients

Increases individuals employability

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And finally, what’s to come….?

Qualifications campaign, to ensure the refreshed qualification

names are effectively communicated: planned for Q3/4 2016

Launch of new website and CRM: Q3 2016

– Improved on-site search and discoverability

– Improved transactional activity

– New modern look and feel accessible across multiple devices and platforms

Review of RPP

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Questions

colin.mackenzie@apm.org.uk

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