Project Manager - Project Performance

This post is a continuation of my discussion from a previous posting about my conceptual model for project manager competency building blocks. I have explained the foundational building blocks of industry experience and organizational experience and described the process knowledge building block as the first of the three project management-specific competency building blocks. In this post I'll explain the second of these project management-specific building blocks - project performance.

The project performance competency building block represents the project manager's ability to apply the project process knowledge and technical skills to the project environment. Project managers must not only know the project management processes and tools but also must be able to apply them to real projects. The project performance competency is developed by identifying the performance elements, determining target performance criteria, evaluating the individuals project performance competencies, identifying gaps between performance and target criteria, establishing a development plan, engaging in performance competency development activities, and re-evaluating the performance. The evaluation, gap analysis, development plan, and development steps are continually iterated as the project manager continues to develop project performance competency. This cycle of performance competency development should continue throughout the career as the project manager constantly learns and improves in applying project management process knowledge.

There is a lot more to the project performance competency building block that what I covered in this brief explanation. A project manager needs to determine the elements of project management that are important to evaluate, determine how to measure the performance for each of the elements, define a target goal for each element, and discover ways to improve in the lower performing elements. I'll try dive into this further in a future post on this blog site.