TMN
Vol.1 Number 2
, Spring 2004
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| New Research Reveals Significant Value of Project Management Training |
A study conducted by the Center for Business Practices (R) (CBP), the research arm of project management consultancy PM Solutions, reveals that organizations find significant value in implementing project management training initiatives.
The study, "The Value of Project Management Training: A Benchmark of Current Business Practices," polled senior practitioners with knowledge of their organizations' project management practices and business results. As the first study to provide benchmark data on a wide variety of project management training issues, "The Value of Project Management Training: A Benchmark of Current Business Practices" was designed to help project management training decision makers including project office leaders, project directors, human resource mangers, and corporate university heads, better understand current practices and trends affecting their project management training investments.
According to the study's findings, senior project management practitioners consistently report moderate to extreme improvement in a variety of business measures including customer satisfaction, productivity, and cost-schedule-requirements performance as a result of project management training initiatives. More than 90% of organizations surveyed showed moderate to extreme improvement in the training participant's on-the-job performance. In 62% to 91% of organizations, project management training resulted in moderate to extreme improvement in the participant's knowledge or skills, as well as in schedule performance, requirements performance, quality, productivity, cycle time, employee satisfaction, and customer satisfaction.
"It's clear from this survey that more and more companies value project management training as a key element of project implementation and, as a result, business success," said Jim Pennypacker, director of the CBP. "Many organizations are currently planning their training initiatives for the year, and these findings will help them better determine how to best improve their project management performance."
"The Value of Project Management Training: A Benchmark of Current Business Practices" also reveals that most organizations (57%) outsource their project management training initiatives to private training or consulting companies. The on-site classroom is still the most used training delivery method (40%) followed by off-site classroom instruction (22%) and e-learning (27%).
Other key findings include:
-- Training Practices - The types of project management training were evenly spread, with the largest number of organizations offering project management basics (74%), followed by advanced project management skill development (55%), and project management software tool training (55%). These percentages are expected to change somewhat in 2004, with more companies offering advanced project management skill development.
-- Training Source Criteria - The criteria for selecting a private training or consulting company, in-house trainer, or independent training instructor, ranked in order of importance, are:
1) quality
2) cost
3) organizational requirements
4) convenience
5) customer service
6) reputation.
Cost of PM Training - Most organizations expect their project management training expenses to remain the same or to increase in 2004.
The CBP's "The Value of Project Management Training: A Benchmark of Current Business Practices" survey was sent via e-mail to 1,305 senior project management practitioners. 53 companies are represented in the survey findings. The complete survey results are available for purchase at www.cbponline.com. A free summary of the findings can be downloaded at www.pmsolutions.com.
Copyright ŠTechnology Management Newsletter, 2004
