Our Project Management Competency Assessment service is designed to help individuals and businesses understand their Project Management capability, and to assess how it might be improved to the benefit of both parties. 

An initial Project Performance Competency Assessment can provide an objective evaluation of the baseline for an individual or group against which future performance improvement can be measured. Such a baseline is essential if the the business is to understand the delivered benefits of training or consultancy in project management. These baselines can then be used to prioritise improvement actions which may apply to the individual (eg by training) or to the organisation (in improvements in processes, for example).

When your business invests in a project, it is putting a great deal of faith in the person appointed as Project Manager to protect this investment and deliver the benefits on time and on budget. For many people appointed into project management positions this is a daunting task, frequently undertaken without specific training in Project Management skills. Often, the environment itself offers little support for these managers as they struggle to come to terms with their new responsibilities.

The Project Performance Competency Assessment builds up a picture, centred on an individual, based on knowledge, application of that knowledge to the project, the contribution of the project environment within the organisation, and (optionally) feedback from the manager's team and supervisors.

Risk Assessment in a project is the most difficult phase of all to carry out. From the definition we gave elsewhere, a risk is a combination of uncertainty and constraint. Constraints are usually difficult to remove, though they are important to understand. For instance, a constraint that the project must be finished in time to reflect a new piece of legislation is easy to understand. Manpower constraints are often more uncertain, such as the availability of skilled staff at the critical phase of the project. But, you say, you are just defining a constraint as an uncertainty.

Which just goes to prove how clear the thinking has to be if Risk Assessment is to succeed. So let's try to be absolutely clear what we mean by uncertainty and constraint. Old Concise Oxford defines Certainty as 'Undoubted fact, indubitable prospect, thing in absolute possession, beyond possibility of doubt.' Since the essence of project management is estimation, this tells us that just about everything in the project is uncertain. The same book defined constraint as 'compulsion, confinement'. So in the process of Risk Assessment we are going to attempt to select those areas of the project with the most severe constraints and the highest uncertainty.
Not least among the areas of uncertainty are the internal politics of the project. Some people will want to look good to their bosses, or will want to have a quiet life, or for some other reason may wish to conceal the weaknesses in their project plans. It may be that a sub project manager will be able to move on before the delivery date of his module, so it is in his interests to keep the thing going rather than suffer the agonies of trying to get the project back on track. Or the project may have developed a 'completion culture', where all problems are ignored in order to deliver on time, even though an impartial observer can see that the project is not going to meet its requirements.
The three circles indicate the most important quality measurements of the project. And the most important of these is meeting the users' requirements. How many projects do we know where the team has not bothered with ensuring that the users understand what is proposed, but has got on with the interesting part of the project - actually implementing it.
Finding out and understanding the users requirements, building the project schedules, and preparing the project financial plan, are all an essential part of preparing for the project. These activities should all be carried out in the first phase of the project - see Low Risk Project Management  for more information.

If you have a detailed project plan, statement of user requirements, and budget, then think of the three legged stool - if all three legs are not the same length the stool will topple. These three documents are the three legs of your project plan. So make absolutely certain that they are consistent.

After that, all that you have to do to complete your Risk Assessment is to explore each task in the project plan and seek uncertainty. It is essential to be absolutely clear in your thinking. For instance, 'The project will be late.' is not a Risk, it is an Effect. You need to consider what the things are that could make each TASK in the Project Plan late.

Find hidden problems before they find you...
Are your IT projects catching you by surprise? Are problems occurring that you are catching too late, resulting in unexpected, disruptive, and costly problems later in the project? Fortunately, there is an solution – Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V).

IV&V is a disciplined approach to assessing technology products and processes throughout the development life cycle, consistent with the IEEE Standard for Software Verification and Validation (1012) but also encompassing many other IEEE and industry standards. The objective is to identify issues as early as possible in the project so these issues can be resolved in a timely manner.

By definition, IV&V activities must be performed by a completely independent party with no personal or emotional ties to the project. Work products are carefully reviewed to ensure they will satisfy business requirements, and technical processes are assessed for consistency with applicable industry standards and best practices. Ongoing feedback to the client and vendor project teams improves product and process quality and therefore reduces project risk – and unpleasant surprises.

APMA has the experience and expertise to do the job right.

APMA brings a wide range of skills and experience to the table, ensuring that our assessments are both comprehensive and based on industry standards and best practices.

How effective are your project teams? Our team effectiveness assessment is designed to enable new and existing teams to objectively assess their capabilities. The results allow your team to identify current or potential challenges and to constructively develop improvement strategies.

Effective project management is ultimately dependent upon the individuals that take responsibility for a project effort. Focus Project Manager is a comprehensive personal assessment tool for project managers. Designed as a means for improvement and continued career development, it provides a detailed evaluation of both personal preferences and project management skills and how your personal capabilities influence your approach to the project management role.

Our project audits provide an objective and independent view of current performance and project management capabilities. Whether at the start of the project, midway, or after a project is completed, a project audit can provide relevant advice on improving the current project and invaluable input for improving future project efforts. Our audits have been used to evaluate process effectiveness, project outcomes and the realization of project business cases.

Projects are conducted to realize strategy and deliver effective returns on organizational investments. There is often a wide gulf between the articulation of the business case and realization of the promised results. Apart from the time required to realize results, there is also the commitment necessary to ensure that the required organizational and behavioural changes occur. Project value assessments are designed to provide an objective assessment of the degree to which the planned returns of your project investments are being realized, and to quantify the value of your project efforts. Whether for a portfolio, program or strategic initiative, we can help ensure your project efforts deliver real value.

While we are willing to invest in investigating a failed project effort, these project audits are “rearview mirror” assessments of what went wrong. What would happen if we did an audit in reverse? Our Pre-project Success assessments are exactly that. They are designed to help ensure your projects have the tools for success in advance. We proactively work with your organization to review the plans, processes and structures in place for your strategic initiative, and provide concrete and actionable guidance on how to ensure your project goes right-right from the start.

Designed to understand both the effectiveness and consistency by which an organization manages its projects, our PM RoadMap assessment process provides a comprehensive view of organizational practices. The results include comparison against a benchmark database of over 650 organizations from around the world, allowing you to evaluate not just where your capabilities are but how they compare to other organizations.