Project HEADWAY
Webinar
How To Build A Meaningful
Development Plan
Mark Mullaly, Ph.D., PMP
mark.mullaly@interthink.ca
@markmullaly
We will be starting at 3:00 PM EST
Mark Mullaly is the host for
today s webinar. Mark is a
management consultant with
more than 25 years of
project management
experience.
He brings a wealth of
experience in managing
projects in a broad array of
sectors and industries.
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Webinar Objectives

• Understand The Purpose Of The Talent Triangle

In Promoting Overall Development

• Understand The Boundaries—And Gaps—That

Exist In Each Dimension

• Provide Guidance In Creating Meaningful

Personal Development Plans

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Webinar Process – Things to Know

• This Is Cisco WebEx Presentation

• PowerPoint
• Computer-based audio stream
• Problems or Help?
• Contact Heather using the Q&A box
• Questions?
• Submit a question in the Q&A box
• Questions will be answered during the Q&A session
• We may not be able to answer all questions
• This Presentation Will Be Recorded for Future
Reference
• PDUs

4
Agenda

• Introduction
• Defining Our Terms
• Exploring The Talent Triangle
• Defining The Gaps
• Building An Effective Development Plan
• Question & Answer Session

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Defining Our Terms

(Personal) Development

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Defining ‘Development'

• 'Development' Means:
• To set forth or make clear by degrees
• To work out the possibilities of
• To make active or promote the growth of
• To cause to evolve or unfold gradually
• To acquire gradually

• Source: merriam-webster.com
• Definition taken on 24 March 2019

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Defining ‘Personal Development'

• 'Personal Development' Means:

• Activities that improve awareness and identity
• Develop talents and potential
• Build human capital and facilitate employability
• Enhance the quality of life and contribute to the realization of
dreams and aspirations
• Personal Development Takes Place Over The Course Of A
Person's Entire Life
• Not limited to self-help
• The concept involves formal and informal activities for developing
others in roles such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, life
coach or mentor

• Source: wikipedia.org
• Definition taken on 24 March 2019

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What Does The PMBOK Have To Say?

• Not A Great Deal, Directly

• There Are Indirect References

• The influence of development and learning on culture
• Mostly focused on others
• Particularly the need to train and build expertise in our team and
our stakeholders

• Implicitly, It’s Woven Through

• From the perspective of learning to be a project manager
• Framed specifically in terms of attaining certification
• Actual development is mentioned exactly once
• Grounding in the professional discipline and the building of project
manager competences

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Some Overriding Themes

• Exploring Development, It’s Important To

Recognize That It Is:
• Exploratory
• Gradual
• Evolutionary
• Active

• We Don’t Do It All At Once

• It is a process of becoming, not being
• It is evolutionary, not finite and distinct
• It’s a journey, not an end state
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Exploring The Talent Triangle

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How We Develop As Project Managers

• Most Of Us Don’t Start Off Intending To Become

Project Managers
• Often, we don’t even know project management exists

• We Focus On The Problems We Are Having

• And we welcome tools that help solve them

• We Attack Specifics
• Without necessarily seeing the larger picture

• We Start From Where We Are

• And pursue what seems helpful and useful from there
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What That Has Often Meant

• For Many Project Managers, Development Has

Been Fragmented And Sporadic

• Develop Is Often Informal And Inconsistent

• We Focus On The Skills We Think We Need

• And also the things that most interest us

• We Pursue Specialist Domains

• And often adopt a more narrow focus as a result
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Introducing The Talent Triangle

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Dimensions – Technical Project Mgmt

• How To Get Projects Done

• Addressing The Technical Tools Of Project

Management
• Dealing with the mechanics and techniques
• Largely aligning with the dimensions of the PMBOK
• Emphasizing the “work that project managers do”

• Very Frequently, The Focus Of Traditional Project

Management Training
• Foundational principles
• Advanced topics
• Software training
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Dimensions – Leadership

• How To Get People To Work Together

• Addressing What Gets Labelled As The “Soft” Skills

• Which, in reality, are the really hard things to learn

• Recognizing That Projects Ultimately Rely On People

• And we need to motivate, coordinate, encourage and guide
people to:
• Do the project
• Support the project
• Advocate for the project
• Use the results of the project

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Dimensions – Strategic & Business Mgmt

• How Things Actually Get Done Around Here

• The Disciplines Most Related To The Kind Of Project

• The type of project being conducted and its processes
• The industry the project is being done in and its
particularities
• The organizational context the project is being delivered in
and its peculiarities

• This Is The Domain That Is Most Contextual

• We tend to think about it most in the abstract
• We most need to learn and address it in the particular
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Defining The Gaps

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Assessing Where We Are

• Development Requires Focus

• That means—first of all—knowing where we are starting
from

• A Candid Self Assessment Is Hard

• It means recognizing what we are good at
• It also means acknowledging what we don’t do well
• It’s most difficult in identifying what we don’t actually know

• This Is Where Mentors And Coaches Are Relevant

• Recognizing models and exemplars that we respect and
admire
• Critically assessing what they do, and what we might learn

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Identifying Where We Need To Focus

• Building A Development Plan Means Identifying What We

Need To Do Differently
• That can often be a very long list of opportunities

• Focus Is Critical
• That means knowing what is most important and critical
• It also means narrowing things down to “what do I need to change
right now?”

• It Is Virtually Impossible To Make Meaningful Change In A

Number Of Areas
• Particularly when those changes are significant
• Pick one thing, and get better at it
• When you’ve sorted that, keep going
• Repeat as necessary
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What’s Missing Within The Dimensions

• The Talent Triangle Is Useful

• It is by necessity incomplete

• For Many, Project Management Is Only One Role

• They may be analysts
• They may be specialists
• The may be supervisors, managers or executives

• The Talent Triangle Focusses On Project Management

Exclusively
• That’s not overly surprising
• But it means that it isn’t complete in defining our overall
development needs or opportunities

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What’s Missing Beyond The Dimensions

• The Talent Triangle Also Goes So Far

• It defines what it understands within project management
• Project management itself draws on numerous other
dimensions
• We’ve borrowed techniques and concepts, and then
forgotten where we borrowed them from

• What We Actually Leverage As Project Managers Is

Enormous
• It is the ultimate generalist skill
• We need to be able to draw on a range of different
dimensions
• Which means we need to understand what it means to be a
generalist

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What’s Missing In Personal Exploration

• A Key Aspect Of Project Management Is Knowing

How To Learn
• It’s recognizing that the field is incredibly broad
• It’s acknowledging that we will not—and can not—know
everything
• It’s being judicious about what we need to know—and what
we can trust to others

• Being A Generalist Is Hard

• It means knowing a little bit about a lot
• It also means recognizing that most people know more
about any individual dimension than we will ever master
• And it means being entirely accepting of that reality
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What’s Missing In Formal Education

• Formal Education Often Focusses On The Technical

• It’s easier to teach
• There are right and wrong answers
• Many believe these are the skills that they need to learn

• Generalist Understanding Is Far More Difficult To Develop

• We often don’t learn it through teaching and formal education—
although it is possible to do so
• It’s focused principally learning how to learn
• If we can accept and embrace that, then what we CAN learn is virtually
limitless

• Principally, What Is Missing In Formal Education Is Experience

• It’s the basis of all learning
• It emphasizes reflection and evolution of thinking over rote knowing
and doing

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Building An Effective Development Plan

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Defining A Development Plan

• Development Plans Are About Aspirations And Evolution

• It will—or should—never be a concrete and specific set of
activities
• It is about moving in a particular direction
• And developing the skills and capabilities to go there

• There Are Few Meaningful Templates

• This isn’t about filling out forms and developing documents
• It is about setting objectives and defining tendencies to move
towards

• Good Development Plans Identify Opportunities And

Outcomes
• The specifics of how we get there will vary
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Thinking About Our End State

• The End State Is Not About What We Want To Know

• It is about where we want to be
• Much of that is related to role and career aspiration
• Even then, it will be more aspirational than specific

• What’s The Outcome You Want To Pursue?

• That’s not about job, industry, position or responsibility
• It is far more about the kind of challenge that you enjoy
and embrace
• Development is about preparing for those challenges
• The reality is that there will be many pathways that support
their attainment

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Exploring Our Journey

• The Journey Is Exactly That

• It’s an evolutionary progression from now into the future

• It Will Not Be Precise Or Prescribed

• But it should help select the opportunities that make the
most sense

• The Timeline Will Not Be Preordained

• It will depend on challenge, opportunity and capacity
• There will be times when we grow significantly
• There will be other instances where we focus on the here
and now, and getting things done
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Honestly Assessing Where We Are

• Knowing Where We Are Requires Feedback

• It means being open to constructive criticism and the
identification of meaningful opportunities

• Take The Time To Think About How You Perceive

Yourself In Your Role And Position
• But consult with others that you trust and respect
• Be particularly focussed on feedback that you resist and
resent
• This is very often related to our blind spots as individuals
• The insights here can make the greatest difference in
how we evolve and improve
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Defining Where To Go

• There Are Always Many Things We Could Do

• The essential challenge is deciding what we are going to do

• That Will Be A Product Of Several Dimensions

• Personal interest and aspirations
• Availability of learning opportunities
• Immediate challenges and gaps in understanding
• Skills we need to demonstrate and apply

• Direction Is About “What Do I Most Need To Focus On

Now?”
• What will make the biggest difference?
• What will solve the challenges that you are currently
experiencing?

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Considering How To Get There

• How We Learn Is Perhaps The Most Critical

• And where it helps to be the most flexible

• The Ways That We Can Learn Are Many

• Formal training and education
• Reading and self study
• Observation and insight from others’ lived experiences
• Mentoring and coaching
• Experience and the school of hard knocks

• As Adults, We Tend To Learn Most From What We Can Apply

And Experience
• Although making mistakes in real life can be an expensive way to
learn
• Finding ways to experience insight in lower impact environments is
ideal
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In Conclusion…

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In Conclusion…
• Personal Development Is One Of The Most Important Journeys
We Make
• But it is often the least structured and guided
• Project Management Is Multi-Faceted
• But we often don’t learn it coherently and comprehensively
• We start somewhere else, and pick up tools and skills along the way
• Which is what the Talent Triangle attempts to guide
• Being A Project Manager Involves Going Beyond
• Project management is the ultimate generalist activity
• We need to know a little bit in a huge variety of areas
• We need to decide where we can trust and rely on the skills of others
• Most importantly, being a generalist means emphasizing learning how to
learn
• Development Plans Are Not About Formal Documents
• They are about end states, opportunities and direction
• Based on feedback about where we are now, and where we want to be
• Being able to recognize the opportunities that will tend towards where we
want to go 33
Q&A

How To Build A Meaningful

Development Plan

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Questions?

• Quick Review: Process to Pose a Question

• Questions?

Mark E. Mullaly, PMP

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Mark Your Calendars!

Project HEADWAY

Can I Keep On Doing This?

Thursday, 18 April 2019

@ 3:00 PM EST

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 The End
Questions for the Presenter?
Mark Mullaly
mark.mullaly@interthink.ca
@markmullaly
Interested in project HEADWAY?
http://projectmanagement.com/membership
Mark Mullaly is the host for
today s webinar. Mark is a
management consultant with
more than 25 years of
project management
experience.
He brings a wealth of
experience in managing
projects in a broad array of
sectors and industries.
40