How behavioural competency can affect your project

In addition, personality is often mistaken for behavioural capability, which can produce misleading results. Just because you have a natural tendency to be introverted does not mean that you can’t behave in an assertive and confident manner when the situation requires it. You might just enjoy it less.

Personality is a driver of behaviour, however it should be considered an input only as superior project managers understand what behaviour they need to display, and when they need to display it, often masking their inherent personality type along the way.

“This all sounds too ‘warm and fuzzy’,” organisations tend to say. “We assess and select our project managers based on their resumes, certifications, references or technical skills, and develop them based on the same criteria, because it allows decisions to be made on tangible facts and figures.”

However, just like with any set of standards it is possible to: identify, measure, and develop specific behavioural competencies that are common to superior performing project managers. You just need the right framework, tools and experience.

Behaviour and failure

If you ignore behaviour, what risks are you taking? More importantly, what risks are you exposing your organisation to, and their project investment? Depending on who you speak to, what publication you read, and on which particular day, the fact is that an alarming and unacceptable number of projects fail.

Failure is a subjective word, and is typically only measured in terms of budget and time. However if you consider project success or failure in terms of benefits realisation, customer engagement/satisfaction, IP and knowledge sharing and so on, then it’s probably fair to assume that there is room for improvement.

Some improvement might be gained by increased investment in process re-engineering, methodology and systems design. But this traditional approach to project failure has only limited impact if you have the wrong person driving the car. As an example, if your project managers can’t develop effective partnerships with key stakeholders, then spending millions of dollars on a new governance framework could be futile.

Consider the following behavioural competencies in the context of your project environment.

• Stakeholder engagement: An ability to build and maintain strong stakeholder partnerships.
• Strategic focus: An understanding of a project in the context of the broader business/strategic objectives.
• Results drive: Unwavering commitment, accountability and drive towards successful project deliver.
• Impact and credibility: Demonstration of credibility and professionalism that builds confidence in those around you.
• Problem solving: A logical and structured approach to solving complex problems.
• Project organisation: An ability to effectively plan and manage project resources and tasks.
• Communication: An ability to communicate with key project people in a clear and compelling manner.
• Team leadership: Achieving high quality outcomes through inspirational and productive team leadership.

Now ask yourself the following questions:

1. Which are most important for your business and project portfolio?
2. To what degree is each of these behaviours demonstrated by you, your colleagues or your project teams as a whole?
3. Does your organisation have the tools and experience to accurately measure capability in these areas?

The key is to understanding that not every project needs a visionary. Correct alignment is far more valuable. Do your project managers have the strengths in the specific technical and behavioural competencies needed to deliver the required outcomes from their specific projects?

I recognise that it would be both tenuous and unfair to assume that a project manager has sole responsibility for project success or failure. After all, the car can break down, the backers can pull the funding, or the race might be cancelled due to bad weather. However, I am confident in saying that if you have the best driver then you increase your chances of winning the race.

Next we will look in more detail at stakeholder partnerships, strategic focus, and results drive, to determine how these behaviours can influence outcomes at an organisational level.