Published
Martin Barnes’ complete quotation, from which I have extracted the title for this blog, reads:
“Major projects are so complex that they require cross-disciplinary collaboration of the highest order – within and between companies and cultures – before they can be implemented successfully.”
Up to now, there hasn’t been a dedicated assessment and certification to allow major project delivery professionals to reflect their level of capability which makes The Association for Project Management’s ‘Major Project Leadership Specialist Certificate’ launched earlier in November timely and welcome.
“The very nature of major projects makes the leadership of them very different from the general leadership of large organisations or the leadership of regular projects. For example, leaders of major projects have to deal with complexities such as leading across organisational boundaries, dealing with a temporary organisation that has characteristics of a permanent organisation or dealing with longer timescale which introduce uncertainty and ambiguity of requirements, solutions, benefits and costs. The Major Project Leadership Specialist Certificate assesses competencies required to address such characteristics so major project leaders and their employers can now understand development pathways and capabilities for those who wish to take on the most challenging of projects.” Andy Murray, Executive Director, The Major Projects Association
The Assessment uses evidence statements, each one supported by a senior stakeholder or sponsor, for each of the eight competence areas:
- Engagement and relationship management of multi-level stakeholders
- Judgement, decision making and accountability
- Leadership in ambiguous environments
- Major project organisational architecture
- Strategic procurement and contract leadership
- Strategic risk management
- Systems thinking
- Investment management
followed by an interview by two assessors.
More details of the Certificate and to apply
Major Projects Association skills development event and programme
The Major Projects Association evening meeting on 19th January 2022 will be exploring how these skills may need to develop and change for the future: Reimagining Skills for the Next Generation of Major Projects. And the next cohort of the Association’s own flagship development programme, The Challenge of Major Projects, will kick off on 15th February 2022.