Welcome to the APM podcast.

APM is the chartered body for the project profession.

My name is Emma DaVita and I'm the editor of Project, APM's quarterly journal and your host in this podcast.

I'm speaking to Doctor Sarah Haji Kazemi and Professor Eunice Matarina Sanchez, 2 co-authors, along with Graham Winch of AP M's latest report Projecting for the Future, Harmonising Energy and environment.

Sarah is senior lecturer in engineering project management at Queen Mary University of London and Eunice is professor in project management at Alliance Manchester Business School.

APM launched Projecting the Future in 2019 to debate the challenges and opportunities for the profession.

Building on the 2017 Future of Project Management exercise conducted by Arab and University College London, this latest study represents A5 year update on The Big Conversation and was conducted to provide insights into what the profession sees as the most important future trends that are likely to impact the way project managers practise their profession.

To identify what might need to change in its professional practise as we progress.

Sarah and Eunice are here to present some of the findings report covers and to give you an overview of its recommendations.

There'll be plenty food for thought, so welcome Sarah and welcome Eunice.

Thank you for finding the time.

Thank you for having.

Us it's a pleasure.

I I think it would be useful for people to get a bit of background on the projecting the future research APM has been involved with over the past five years.

Do do you want to give us a bit of background?

So the background, so as you said this, this goes back quite a while back through that initial conversation that APM started in that those leadership thought leadership initiatives.

So it builds on that work that Arab and UCL did in 2017, really trying to understand what the future of project management was.

And they identified those seven global trends that would impact the way that we manage projects.

So shifting a work patterns, for example, the way that the decentralizations of working, the shift in innovation cultures in many organisations, automation and so on.

And that report concluded with a call for further reflection on the future of the profession.

And that, of course, was taken up by Tim Banfield.

And that led to a series of those golden thread conversations, which led to those six very useful papers where they identified.

So these are the big trends that we're seeing that will really have an impact on the profession.

So AI, big data, climate change, the changes in demographics, so the ageing population and the impact that would have in terms of our the need of our infrastructure, transport, smart cities, urbanizations, really thinking now in terms of systems of systems and again, the future of work and scales.

So overall, those reports really aim to show the importance of projects, how important projects and how important the effective management of projects are not only to the UK society but also to the economy.

So this is almost the third cycle of reflection.

That golden thread conversation was of course paused because of the COVID pandemic.

So we wanted to, you know, bring it up, bring it back to life.

And so this report really is the opportunity to have that third cycle of reflection really thinking more in terms of what does this mean for net 0 targets, for example?

So this is really huge big picture stuff about societal trends, economic trends, environmental trends, which is I imagine it's a hugely important thing to read for project managers and project leaders to put everything into context and picks up.

And as he said, the system of systems, because everything's connected.

And it seems to me that more and more as as projects go forward, that you can't just do it in isolation.

I mean, everything is linked to the benefits are linked and the outcomes are linked.

So this is really interesting stuff.

So I wonder what has been achieved by the profession over the past five years.

You've got this big kind of bigger perspective.

So with your kind of lens on things, what would you say the achievements have been?

Yes.

So obviously it's Needless to say that projects have always made and they continue to make huge contributions to the economy and to the society all around the world.

But if you want to specifically say what has been achieved by the profession in the past five years, I think we can look into how they have actually changed or managed to adapt to the new trends.

So we can see that, you know, projects and we're talking about UK and mostly the developed countries, but they have managed to adopt more effective project management methodologies, agile hybrid approaches have the use of them have increased in every sector, digital tools and technologies.

Obviously they have revolutionised the the management of projects and also the the profession has has managed to, to to a high degree, adapt to the new trends.

Basically in this area as well, there's been a huge change in the way of working and I think this is probably post COVID, the remote working which has again changed almost every sector, including the project, the project management profession as well.

And obviously there has have been lots of development in developing the skills for virtual working and remote working as well.

And I can say finally, probably there's there's much more focus on obviously sustainability, at least in the conversations within the profession.

Now it's it's a different thing if you know if everything, all the sustainability principles are actually being implemented.

But at least the conversation has very seriously begun.

Yeah, absolutely.

I agree with all those points.

I think, you know, in the report we look back at where we have been, where we are now and where we we could go, where we might go in the future.

And the points that Sarah made are very much linked to what we've seen, what was noted in the trends.

But what has a project profession achieved in the past five years?

For me, I can go a little bit beyond, if you may, how we responded to the pandemic and the role that projects, the role that the profession made to that response was incredible.

And I think as a profession, we should be really, really proud and really say, look at what we can achieve in in those moments of crisis, how flexible, how adaptable, how responsive we are.

And it links to that point that Sarah made.

The other thing that really resonates with me and it's also the role projects are playing and have played in relation to responding to the grand challenges.

And we can see many examples of those to be able to respond.

And I think that also offers additional challenges, brings additional challenges to the profession, but also great opportunities.

And I think something else is the I think more and more you hear, especially in own organisations, the importance, the importance of projects for achieving their strategic goals.

So we know that as a profession, we've been talking about that for decades now.

But I think now it's really being recognised how important projects, programmes and their effective management are to that strategic level of the organisation and how important it is to have a project professional sitting at that C-Suite level.

So some really big thoughts there.

I think you've perfectly both of you have captured that, that bigger picture.

And I feel it's almost the trajectory of project management and it's professionalisation as well and the seriousness with which it's now taken.

I don't know.

I interviewed people throughout the pandemic and the project professionals who were keeping companies afloat that the companies turned to them to make their retail business online only.

You know, finding the vaccine was a project and I think it did an incredible amount to boost the kind of reputation for the professional, give people a greater understanding of what it actually meant means to be in project management.

So it's nice to hear that you would agree with that.

I guess we've covered a bit about how projects themselves have been changing over the past five years, and you've talked about various ways of running projects.

And I guess that taps in to the mindset, you know, to thrive these days.

You know, it's about having adaptability, about being, having greater agility.

So for people who are listening, we've got the kind of big picture context.

But if you were to speak to an individual who's listening right now and give them advice about how they should approach their projects, is there a particular mindset or point of view that they should take?

Because everyone talks about the constantly changing world.

I mean, it's a roller coaster right now, isn't it?

Is there any anything you've noticed that you'd pass on?

I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all advice is for me, it's a really focus on the on the outcome.

And we've started to hear more and more on that rather than just, you know, traditionally project management was all about deliver the output, do the work, deliver the output.

But actually it's not about that.

It's really thinking about that long term strategic outcome.

What's the value, what's the benefit that's that output will deliver for the owner and operator?

And I think it's that's, that's important to keep in mind, as I say to our executives and our students, you know, that's the, for me, that's your North Star, That's you should that's your guiding light.

So always focus on on the outcome, really be outcome focus or if you want that mindset of outcome focus and really trying to recognise that value is important.

Thank you.

Eunice.

Sarah, is there anything you wanted to add to that?

Yes.

Well, while I fully agree with with what Eunice said, I want to also bring another angle.

Yes.

So the, the kind of having that value oriented kind of mindset and seeing the outcome is obviously very important, but I think it's also as important to have a focus on, on the process as well.

So how we kind of, you know, lead from from point A to point B and what needs to be recognised in a close throughout that process.

So you mentioned Emma in the, you know, in your question that, you know, we are in a, in a constantly changing environment and there's a need for adaptability, high level of adaptability and flexibility.

So the first step, I think, or the first kind of recommendation would be to acknowledge that we are in a very volatile market and environment and there's need for kind of changing the mindset of we've always done it this way because it's, it's not going to work like that.

Things are, you know, changing dramatically, you know, with I guess everyone's, you know, thinking about generating of AI and how you know, everyone's lives are going to change because of that in every, every aspect of life.

So really having kind of being ready to accept that there are changes and we need to be adaptable and flexible.

And we can't really confidently say this is the way we've done it in the past 30 years, especially, you know, those are more experienced.

And that's how we should continue to do it.

So I think there's a need for a shift in the mindset.

That's really interesting.

One of the questions I had was around the the biggest challenges that have sprung up over the past five years and you already there mentioned generative AI is, is that is that whole area the the biggest challenge facing project professionals?

Yes.

So that the disruption of new, the new and rapid pace of technology change as Sarah was saying, yes, absolutely.

But that has been, we've always talked about that, haven't we?

I think it's now it's just that pace of change and the, as Sarah said, how the profession really needs to adapt, to stay updated, to really think about how they're going to integrate all that into their ways of working into those processes, into the practises, how you scale and upscale or rescale for that.

And that's really that's resource intensive.

So it's really, as Sarah said, requires a change of mindset.

We can't continue to managing and delivering the projects the way we have done because our context is changing.

And it's recognising that things that are continue to be challenge challenges is the resource managing and retaining our resources.

And that's been a point of discussion over many years, but we still have it.

You know, you come, you develop published the reports indicating how many project managers are required over the next 10 years in these different sectors.

And the demand for project managers is out.

You know, for me it's incredible.

And, and there's still needs to, we still need to be able to manage and develop and retain those resources.

Perhaps also another challenge, building on what Sarah said, is that adapting to new ways of working, new working practises, new working patterns.

It's important the given the context that we're living in now, also being able to deal with uncertainty and that fast change that requires a different mindset as well.

And of course, I think for me, it's the last point before I hand over to Sarah, is really thinking about how we integrate both the environmental, the social considerations into the project.

That continues to be a big challenge.

As Sarah says, we talk about it, but I we know from at least from our focus groups, you know, that still contains well, how do we make that happen practically?

What does that look like?

We need more skills, we need knowledge and we really need to think about how we're going to measure it.

What does that look like?

I couldn't agree more with, with the points Eunice made.

And I can, I can build on, on the, the final point that Eunice mentioned that we're, we're, and, and this is again, not, not just Europe, not just UK, but you know, it's, it's a global kind of shift that we're moving away from fossil fuel based economy to renewable energy based economy.

And, and this raises lots of lots of challenges on its own with obviously less resources, obviously, so kind of limited resources, but also a much stronger emphasis on sustainability.

And that is in every all the three pillars of sustainability.

So society, social sustainability, environmental and economy as well.

So I guess if we want to summarise it's I think generative AI and moving away from fossil fuel based economy is are the main 2 challenges for the profession.

OK, thank you.

But we've spent a lot of time talking about the challenges.

What about the findings and recommendations from from the survey?

There were ten I think.

So could you talk us through some of the most important ones because we won't be able to cover all of them, but if there were, you know, a few that you wanted to talk about, that would be really interesting.

In in the report, when we look back at where the profession has come from, the contribution it has made, when we look at it through the lens of the industrial revolutions, I think one thing that certainly comes out that we, we should I suppose be more vocal of, of is the profession's ownership of the role of the projector.

Our role is projecting to that future.

What do you mean by that?

What?

What is the projection?

What do you mean projecting?

One of the key capabilities we see as as part of the as a project manager project professional is their ability capability of visioning.

You know, we talk about projects as future orientated endeavours.

We project an idea forward, and indeed, that's where the term project comes from, to project to throw an idea forward in, in space and time.

And that's what we mean by the projector.

So really thinking about how we create and articulate the narratives about what that future could look like, and then thinking about, as Sarah said, that process, right, if that's where we want to get to, that's us projecting that idea forward.

This is how we can achieve that.

So for me, it's really harnessing and really exploring the that role as a projector because we are now really drawing on our historical contribution.

You know, that idea comes from the foe.

It's, it's not us, it comes from the foe's work, really thinking about the historical contribution that projects have had, as we said to economy and society and to the development and really trying to connect that more strongly to the profession's contribution to now the environmental, the society aspirations of the future.

Just trying to, to bridge those.

So that for me is a really important thing that we that is worth exploring.

Sorry, just for listeners who might not know who you mean by Defoe, who are you talking about?

He's the one that wrote the book and I have it here.

Danny Defoe, a tour through the whole island of Great Britain.

So he was actually working for, I can't remember which king you're going to put me on the spot, but presented the idea to the king of investing in projects for enhancing the development of the country, and he came up with the idea of the projector.

Which century was that?

So yeah, defo 1697 is the quote.

So that's good homework for listeners if they want to find out more, go and look him up.

Were there any other recommendations or findings that you wanted to talk about particularly?

We make recommendations for the APM in terms of looking at how we can develop a profession, really focusing on leadership development for the profession.

Think we also make recommendations about the role of APM in helping develop some sort of framework to help the profession.

I suppose measure the sustainability practises if you like.

So that's something that came out of the report.

Yeah, I mean, Sarah, were there any challenges or recommendations?

Sorry, any recommendations you you wanted to discuss?

I just think it's, well, we're talking about our own work.

So, so I hope this doesn't come across as, but I think the beauty of this report is that there are recommendations for, for everyone, you know, every, every, at every level at every stage of, of career.

If you look at, you know, the project managers and project scholars as well, and I guess everyone can, can pick what's you know resonates well with, with what they're doing in the context of their work.

For me, what, what was, you know, the, the highlight of, of the report, I think it was on, on the role of, of human beings in projects.

So starting with the role of the project leader, the importance of the role of a project leader beyond just being basically an administrator, someone who just does project reviews and looks at timelines and you know, all these baselines, but actually the effect that they can have on the project team and on the the outcome of the project.

So, so the importance of the role of the project leader and skills that they need to develop as a project leader to successfully take the team or you know, go from point A to point B as we say.

So bring that change which is intended by the project.

So what?

What would be?

What would be a key skills that a successful project leader in 2025 would need to have in order to achieve that?

So, well, I think this would probably go beyond this kind of the scope of this podcast because there's a wide range of obviously hard and soft scales if we want to just kind of really on a nut in a nutshell, I, I guess it's being open, open to the changes, being flexible and adaptable to their environment.

But one element which is quite very close to my heart as well is, is the equality, diversity and inclusion element and the importance of it beyond just performative kind of, you know, ticking the boxes really.

So it's not just so nice to have.

It's, it's necessary in this era that principles are implemented in every, every project organisation and every project.

So at every level really.

And how, how well is the profession, just anecdotally or whether you've done research on this or not, but how well is the profession doing on this, on this particular trajectory?

Well, I guess there's a recognition of it.

So the conversation again, it's part of, you know, it also kind of it's under the bigger umbrella of sustainability.

So the conversation has begun.

There's awareness, but there's a, there's a gap between being aware of it and being actually able to implement it in day-to-day activities.

It's very sector, it's very different from sectors to sector.

So I think it's, it's no secret that the construction sector obviously has traditionally been, you know, male dominated and the culture is quite different from from other sectors because of the nature.

Of of the work.

So it, it depends.

I, I think there's definitely has, has been advancements and developments, but there's a long way to go and that's in every of, of EDI.

So it's not just gender quantity, there are lots of other elements in other areas that we need to take into account.

Can I just build on on what Sarah was saying about this sort of the the your question around what skills, leadership skills and how is the profession doing?

So in the report we had, we do highlight, you know, there is a need to think more broadly in terms of those leadership capabilities for how we lead projects in the future.

And if, if we want really put the project profession to have a seat at that senior level, boardroom at corporate level, then we really need to think about this.

So we do talk about some, we talk about more leadership capabilities or domains rather than specific skills and we present the leadership models.

So one of the, we have 5, let's say, key things that project leaders need to to recognise that their capability to project, to create that vision of the future, their capabilities also to make sense of that context, that changing context and be able to articulate that sense made their ability to develop relationships.

So they're relating capabilities, which links to, you know, their stakeholder engagement to their teams and their creativity, their ability to be innovative, to think of different ways of doing things and not sticking to all patterns.

But with all of those things together, you know, if you if you're able to, to make sense with others, if you're able to create that compelling vision of the future, you can also generate new and better ways of doing things.

And then at the centre, I think that's the key capability that's bringing all those together is your ability of judging, making judgments, your wisdom, in other words, that builds on all that experience, all that intuition, your own values.

And that's what's important.

And we see that now with many organisations that we've been working with that want to develop their project leadership capabilities.

This is something that we work with them to say, OK, how can you develop and enhance those to think more strategically so you can have those conversations at their corporate level as well as with with their project delivery team or with their suppliers or with their contractors, subcontractors, etcetera.

So many interesting things you've mentioned.

I've never heard someone ask project leaders to be creative, But you're so right, because it's about problem solving, it's about innovation.

And that, I mean, it sounds really interesting.

I'm, you know, maybe I'll become a project leader one day, but it's, it's so much to, to take in.

I you've been talking about projectors, but that leads me to ask about the future.

So you've kind of taken stock of where we've been for the past five years and longer, But how, where will the future take the profession and how optimistic do you feel about the future for the profession?

Sarah, if you want to, if you would like to give your views first, that'd be that'd be great.

Right.

So I think your question has two parts.

So the first one is how, how the project will, how the project profession will will change over in the next in the future.

Well, I guess, I guess the challenges that we, we already mentioned kind of it's maps to, to, you know, the changes that will will come again.

And I, and I suppose it's, you know, it's become a cliche because everyone's talking about generative AI these days in every context.

But but it's important.

It's going to change things, it's going to change everything.

And again, this goes back to to development of skills for.

For project.

Leaders and, and, you know, the profession as a whole, I think it's very important that the the profession recognises that generative AI will become a part of, you know, part of how we work.

It's, you know, there's lots of resistance against it, I know, especially in in certain sectors, but we have to accept it and we have to learn how to to best take advantage of it.

So I think part of the report, it is a nice kind of summary of three ways that, you know, generative AI can be used.

And it's important that project leaders recognise which one to use at what stage of the project and what, you know, when to use it really.

So one of them is, is that generative AI is going to automate lots of the work that we do.

It can.

The second one is that you can assist us in the ways that we do things and, you know, at a higher level, it can actually help with complex decision making.

So I guess it's important that a project leaders kind of, you know, develop the skills to, to make a decision or a judgement on when to use generative AI, how to use it so that, you know, the, IT can kind of help the project to succeed and achieve its, its vision.

And also, obviously, again, this goes hand in hand.

Projects are becoming much more complex.

So the traditional project management methodologies.

So the volume of data that we have and the velocity of the data and the variety of the data.

Again, I'm taking this from the report.

It's going to overwhelm the traditional project management methods.

So, so we can't really continue doing the same thing with, you know, with data that we have today and the size and scope of the projects.

So it's about using the right tools for analysing and being able to to act on the data that we can collect and it's available to projects.

That's a yeah, very interesting point.

I hadn't no one's ever mentioned that before.

The fact that it can be overwhelmingly amount of data.

So things cannot carry on as they they have been if you're going to use that in any kind of useful way.

Thank you.

Sarah.

Eunice, was there, was there anything you wanted to raise?

What does the future hold for the project profession?

I wish I was.

I'm not in Oracle.

I wish I was.

You don't have a crystal ball.

I.

Don't have a crystal ball prediction as Neil, Neil Sport said is very difficult, especially when we want to predict the future.

So I think again, it's building on the trends that have been reported and of course the things that we're seeing right day-to-day and that we're experiencing as as Sarah said during as as we are managing our projects.

I think the future offers great opportunities and challenges.

I mean, that's that's the world we live in.

I think there are two things that we need to consider.

The first one, as Sarah said, the implications of digitalization for practise all the elements that she she mentioned and consider also how the profession is set up for the challenges of addressing Net 0 alongside the SDGS, although those will are coming up soon.

Let's see what the UN comes up with.

But I think those are still valid.

So I think building on the point that Sarah made is really posing back the question to the profession, what do you need to change and how are you going to change to be able to really take on board both the challenges and the opportunities of digitization and of addressing the net ero challenges and the profession From the focus groups we did, they're very aware, they recognise them.

I think they just need some support and overarching framework that will just principles.

I would say this is these are the principles we're working towards as a profession and they're ready, they're ready to respond.

They just need those guiding principles.

And I think that's where APM can help to set that framework and those guiding principles for the profession, then to continue thriving and continue to contribute to to the society and to be able to meet those challenges for the future.

Thank you.

Eunice, if there's one thing that you'd like listeners to take away from this podcast, what what might that be a thought or an action?

What, what springs to mind, Sarah?

Yes.

So it was difficult to choose one area because, you know, the report touches upon lots of, you know, a diverse range of areas.

But again, so, so it's my personal choice of what I think, you know, what kind of I can personally relate to.

And I think it's very important.

I think again, it goes back to the, to the project leaders role.

And I believe if I want to just, you know, put a keyword out, I think ethical leadership, probably ethical leadership kind of, I think it nicely covers all that needs to be to be done.

So because most of the challenges that we face these days and we talk about climate change, inequality, all these kind of technological disruptions, environmental issues, they're all really kind of deeply societal and human challenges really.

So it's important that project professionals also recognise this, acknowledge it and also take make ethical decisions during the project.

I, I read an article a few weeks ago and I thought that, that I found it very interesting was that, you know, one of the things that we or project managers are told or have been traditionally told was that, you know, we're a project manager needs to be objective.

But maybe maybe they shouldn't, maybe they shouldn't be objective.

Maybe they should actually question the ways of working or question the status quo and also invite others in their capacity as a project leader, bring that change into the their teams as well and, and question the ways of working and the values.

And that was that is only the only way that, you know, you can, we can make sure that obviously the principles of EDI and you know, the sustainable development goals are actually going to be hopefully achieved.

It's it's, it's the first steps towards that direction, let's say.

Well, I mean, that's brilliant because I think of project professionals as being change makers.

They make change happen.

And I think many people that I've I've interviewed over the past few years have they feel that agency and the fact that they can, they can change things.

So as an individual, when you're approaching a project, how can you become an activist and and with a very small a but to make the change you want to see happen.

So that that shines very well.

Thank you.

Eunice, what would be your kind of parting thoughtful listeners?

I think I'll build on Sarah's point about that ethical leadership.

I was thinking about really asking our, the project profession to really reflect on their role within the context that they they work in, within that context that we've described.

Think about their role and their responsibilities because that's going to frame their decision making.

But really think about where their areas for development are.

So recognise their strengths, but really identify where their areas for development are giving this change in context and restart thinking about where that continuous learning needs to take place.

So I would say what's think about your learning journey, that path, where do you want to go to given giving this changing context?

I think for for the project profession, we need to really start thinking about upscaling and rescaling.

I think for me, that's part of the culture that the profession should have, giving that we are agents of change.

That's what projects are the mechanisms.

For delivery change.

A mechanism for delivering change.

Absolutely right that I was just about to say that's the perfect way turn to podcast.

I thought you'd give me lots of food for thought, but I feel as though you've given me an entire tasting menu.

There's so much to eat up there.

So there's there's something for everyone.

And it just leads me to to kind of thank both of you for sharing your research with us.

And for those who are listening, if you want to find out more about the Projecting the Future report, you can get hold of a copy on the APM website.

You'll find all the details there.

So just leaves me to say, don't forget to look out for more episodes or to rating reviews wherever you get your podcasts.

We'd welcome you to get in touch with your comments, feedback and suggestions by emailing us at apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk.

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