14 Personal and Organizational Project Management Growth
14 Personal and Organizational Project Management Growth
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. (Slater 1998, 12)
—Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, 1981-2001
Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to
- Discuss the role of learning in personal and organizational transformation
- Explain issues related to project management maturity models
- Distinguish between thin and thick sustainability
- List ways to facilitate personal project management maturity
- List ways to facilitate organizational project management maturity
The Big Ideas in this Lesson
- All organizational and personal change starts with learning. The kind of evolution associated with living order project management is a natural result of taking in new ideas and information. Don’t persevere in a particular approach or methodology simply because it’s the one you know.
- A focus on project management maturity, and the organizational learning that goes along with it, are essential components of any continuous improvement effort.
- An important element of your personal project management maturity is figuring out where you and your organization stand on questions of sustainability.
- You need to commit to your own personal development.
14.1 Developing Yourself and Your Organization
The word “development” is widely used in business to refer to a process of transformation. In “product development” it refers to the transformation of an idea into a new product. In “real estate development” it refers to the transformation of a piece of property into something of greater value by constructing buildings, creating roads, and so on. Personal and organizational development are also processes of transformation—change that makes a person a more effective project manager, change that makes an organization a more successful company.
Throughout these lessons, you have read about the many ways that dynamic, ever-changing living order affects the work of project managers. Now we’ll consider how these agile, resourceful thinkers embrace the change required to advance their own personal development, as well as the development of their organizations. We’ll also focus on the concept of project management maturity and the maturity models used to measure it. Then we will explore the many ways that learning can make you a better project manager, and the cultural and organizational barriers to effective learning.
Learning and Mindfulness
Researchers have discovered a lot about the effects of mindfulness, a state of nonjudgemental awareness, on an individual’s ability to learn. Here are a few topics that you might want to explore on your own:
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, author and founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, explains his definition of mindfuless in this short, 1.5-minute: video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWaK2mI_rZw
- In his research on well-being and neuropolast