In a world that has become more complex, ambiguous and uncertain there's a whole bunch of amazing skills which are required to keep big projects from crashing and burning.
Here's a short list: Open-mindedness, adaptability, tolerance of ambiguity, to not jump quickly to conclusions, have a good awareness of fellow team members and how to better serve their needs, to be honest and open with each other in order to develop trust, see things from multiple perspectives and use "gut instinct" well.
Not only are these skill sets in demand for project leaders, but also for people who lead teams distributed everywhere throughout organization systems, so we can more readily help people navigate a rapidly changing world.
Strangely, this complex project manager skill set resembles the skills that kindergarten children already posses or develop, especially the openness to possibility, a thirst for more knowledge and information and preparedness to get on well with other children. If so, then, why, are these skills socialized out of our children by the time they graduate 12 years later, most of them (about 99% actually) removed from the pool of potential complex project managers.
Anecdotal evidence suggest that age and experience and high-level soft skills are prerequisites for becoming complex project managers. Associate Professor Anne Pisarski of Queensland University of Technology Business School is exploring whether it is possible for mid-level managers to develop as complex project managers. Why? They are as scarce as hens's teeth and in high demand.
Anne presented some of her early research findings at our International Centre for Complex Project Management conference in Lille, France (August 23-25, 2011) that suggests it is possible to acquire these skills at an earlier age.
So what if these kinds of skills could be acquired, not from the mid-30s, but from the time we start school, or even before. Many Australian early primary classrooms operate this way, so it should not be that hard. What if our project management people were to have a conversation with primary and secondary educators? Might that make a difference?
Complex projects can be almost anything these days, as more and more organization "projectise" their operations, in order to get new activities started and completed faster. Often they have to beg, borrow, steal (and contract) from across their organizations the many disciplines and resources they need (often temporarily) to get new projects up and running.
Big complex projects can be anything from developing an iron ore mine, upgrading a corporate-wide IT system, keeping peace in a war-torn country, sending a man to Mars, re-inventing school education, developing and launching a new drug, or starting a large-scale self-help project in Africa.
Common features of complex projects are many disciplines, messy politics, short completion time frames, rapidly evolving technologies and methods that are out of date before the project is completed and the intersection of many systems.
So here are some questions/activities for educators to consider:
1. If many more people than ever before are required to play the role of a complex project manager, what can we as teachers do, to prepare young people for these capacities?
2. How might young people learn open-mindedness, adaptability, tolerance of ambiguity, to not jump quickly to conclusions, have a good awareness of fellow team members and how to better serve their needs, to be honest and open with each other in order to develop trust, see things from multiple perspectives and use "gut instinct" well. Choose one and give examples of how this might happen.
3. Design a learning activity where young people could practise these complex project management leadership skills a) in primary school b) in junior high school c) in senior high school and d) at university.
Here's a short list: Open-mindedness, adaptability, tolerance of ambiguity, to not jump quickly to conclusions, have a good awareness of fellow team members and how to better serve their needs, to be honest and open with each other in order to develop trust, see things from multiple perspectives and use "gut instinct" well.
Not only are these skill sets in demand for project leaders, but also for people who lead teams distributed everywhere throughout organization systems, so we can more readily help people navigate a rapidly changing world.
Strangely, this complex project manager skill set resembles the skills that kindergarten children already posses or develop, especially the openness to possibility, a thirst for more knowledge and information and preparedness to get on well with other children. If so, then, why, are these skills socialized out of our children by the time they graduate 12 years later, most of them (about 99% actually) removed from the pool of potential complex project managers.
Anecdotal evidence suggest that age and experience and high-level soft skills are prerequisites for becoming complex project managers. Associate Professor Anne Pisarski of Queensland University of Technology Business School is exploring whether it is possible for mid-level managers to develop as complex project managers. Why? They are as scarce as hens's teeth and in high demand.
Anne presented some of her early research findings at our International Centre for Complex Project Management conference in Lille, France (August 23-25, 2011) that suggests it is possible to acquire these skills at an earlier age.
So what if these kinds of skills could be acquired, not from the mid-30s, but from the time we start school, or even before. Many Australian early primary classrooms operate this way, so it should not be that hard. What if our project management people were to have a conversation with primary and secondary educators? Might that make a difference?
Complex projects can be almost anything these days, as more and more organization "projectise" their operations, in order to get new activities started and completed faster. Often they have to beg, borrow, steal (and contract) from across their organizations the many disciplines and resources they need (often temporarily) to get new projects up and running.
Big complex projects can be anything from developing an iron ore mine, upgrading a corporate-wide IT system, keeping peace in a war-torn country, sending a man to Mars, re-inventing school education, developing and launching a new drug, or starting a large-scale self-help project in Africa.
Common features of complex projects are many disciplines, messy politics, short completion time frames, rapidly evolving technologies and methods that are out of date before the project is completed and the intersection of many systems.
So here are some questions/activities for educators to consider:
1. If many more people than ever before are required to play the role of a complex project manager, what can we as teachers do, to prepare young people for these capacities?
2. How might young people learn open-mindedness, adaptability, tolerance of ambiguity, to not jump quickly to conclusions, have a good awareness of fellow team members and how to better serve their needs, to be honest and open with each other in order to develop trust, see things from multiple perspectives and use "gut instinct" well. Choose one and give examples of how this might happen.
3. Design a learning activity where young people could practise these complex project management leadership skills a) in primary school b) in junior high school c) in senior high school and d) at university.
