Intellect’s Women in IT Forum and womenintechnology.co.uk recently released the results of their survey about women working in the technology profession.

The survey shows that although 8% of women have reached director-level roles, up 3% on 2007, many women are not interested in pursuing pure management roles and want to remain doing hands on, technical jobs. In the IT project management field this equates to women wanting to stick with being project managers and not aspiring to lead a PMO or move into portfolio management.

Groups like the APM’s Women in Project Management SIG exist to support and promote women in project management. Informally, A Girl’s Guide to Project Management does the same. Are we wrong in trying to encourage more women into senior roles? Maybe the reason why we don’t get directorships is because we don’t want them.

I don’t believe this is true. I am sure there are many men happy doing technical, hands on, non-managerial roles as well. Why shouldn’t that type of work appeal to women too? Not everyone wants the stress and people-management responsibilities that come with being a senior manager.

Mixed support for developing women’s careers

Some women, the ones who do want a management career, need to know that the workplace supports their advancement.

However, the statistics don’t completely support that. Over 60% of respondents in the Intellect/WiT survey have more than 10 years of experience but only 26% have reached senior management level. Many of the others reported feeling that they are being passed over for promotion in favour of male colleagues. Over a third of respondents said they had left their last position due to a lack of internal promotion.

Fortunately, thing looks a bit better when it comes to the work/life balance options on offer. Eighty percent of companies offer remote working options, with 71% of survey respondents taking up this option. This seems a lot to me, but as the survey focused on IT professionals it could be that technology companies and IT departments are more forward-thinking when it comes to the kit and the policies to work from home.

Being a woman is not (very) detrimental to your career

Nearly two thirds of respondents agree that being a woman has not been detrimental to their career in technology. Flip that statistic round, and it means that two in five women believe that being a woman has hampered them in some way.

The survey doesn’t expound on exactly how, but here are some of the findings from that section:

• 47% believe that to get ahead in a tech career, you have to act like a man (whatever that means)
• 75% believe that technology employers have a long hours culture
• 84% believe that more should be done to encourage women back to work after maternity leave.

The important thing is that whether you want to move into management or not, all women should feel that their IT project management careers are supported by the company, and that whatever options they want are open to them. What are your experiences of project management career development? Let us know in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Research shows female project managers earn less (but we might get more maternity pay) The Arras People 2011 Benchmark Report is out – and this year the study shows some interesting facts about pay. Pay for female project professionals...
2. Progression of women in PM: new research Zuzana Botkova, an MBA student, is writing her dissertation on the progression of women in project management.   The main areas of focus for her...
3. Women manage the cheap, small projects: new research on International Women’s Day 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.  Today, people all over the world are celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women...

There’s a whole industry around project management training. Job adverts declare that you have to be PMP certified or a PRINCE2 Practitioner. But does training actually make a difference to how you do your job?

Training can make you about 26% more effective, according to research by PM Solutions.

Only 28% of organisations bother to measure whether business results improve as a result of training, but these organisations see improvements across 8 measures:

• Stakeholder satisfaction: 29% improvement
• Schedule performance: 27% improvement
• Project failures: 26% reduction
• Quality: 25% improvement
• Budget performance: 25% improvement
• Requirements performance: 25% improvement
• Productivity: 24% improvement
• Time to market: 24% improvement (I don’t know how this is different from schedule performance).

Conclusive, right? Wrong

Of course, we can’t tell from the research whether the companies that don’t measure business results still see an improvement. Perhaps they do, but they don’t record it and can’t attribute it directly to training. Their project managers may still be performing better as a result of attending training.

The PM Solutions research doesn’t dig in to how businesses actually measure the improvement in business results. How do you attribute the fact that someone has attended a PRINCE2 course to the fact that they are now producing a result that is 25% more ‘quality’ than last week? This assumes that companies have robust measures in place already to track performance of these business metrics.

And in my experience, they don’t.

Let’s just guess if our training was effective

New research by ESI also casts doubt on the ability of companies to accurately record how useful training really is. Their study (which asked about 10 times as many people as the PM Solutions study) shows that 60% of respondents say that the main method they use for working out if training was effective is anecdotal feedback or guessing.

Guessing? Well, that really justifies my investment in training.

How can we make project management training more effective?

PM Solutions reports that instructor-led classroom training is the most effective method of training.

This was rated effective or very effective by about 70% of respondents. Instructor-led virtual learning, self-directed e-learning and technology-delivered training were all only rated as moderately effective.

The ESI study says that the top three strategies for ensuring what students learned on the course is transferred to the workplace are:

• Providing students with the time, resources and responsibility to apply their new learning
• Showing that their manager supports their studies
• Taking a course where the instruction approach simulates the actual work environment.

It also concludes that post-learning tools are important to help transfer the knowledge the workplace after the course. These include post-course discussions with their manager, on-the-job aids, informal support such as social networks or online forums, communities of practice and coaching.

So, to make project management training as effective as possible, it should be:

• Instructor-led classroom training with training material tailored to your project management processes and methods
• Supported by your line manager
• Followed up with on-the-job opportunities to practice what you have learned and discuss it with others.

My company doesn’t do that! What should I do?

First, be grateful that you have the opportunity to do training at all. Many firms are cutting back.

Second, if your company won’t provide that kind of support to help transfer your learning to the workplace, why not do it yourself? You will be the one who benefits ultimately. Making sure you assimilate what you have learned will make you a better project manager, and the better you are, the more career opportunities will be open to you.

So:

• Prepare properly for your course. Take along examples of your project management templates and processes and ask the instructor how the concepts relate to your work environment.
• Schedule follow-up discussions with your manager when you are back.
• Take advantage of the networking opportunity the course presents: could you stay in touch with any of the other students for peer-to-peer coaching sessions?
• Ask the instructor what support materials are available, or what online groups they would recommend. Then join them.

Project management training is an essential part of being a better project manager, but it is hard to quantify how effective it really is to a company, as these two studies show. Rather than rely on your company to help you assimilate the knowledge, take responsibility yourself for making it as effective as possible for you. The company will see the benefits if you deliver them.

What’s your experience of coming back to your job after a course? Have you been asked to demonstrate improvements?

Related posts:

1. Training your project sponsor Unfortunately you might not be able to choose someone as your project sponsor who meets all the criteria that I mentioned last Monday – that...
2. Education and Training: The Debate Is there are big divide between project management academics and those offering training?  And do project managers need both?  These were some of the questions...
3. Effective meetings La Défense doesn’t have proper foliage. There is a magnolia tree opposite our office but following this morning’s brief flurry of snow I doubt that...

Email sent! Please check your inbox for the download link.

Over 75% of you feel that social media tools provide the opportunity to improve the way you manage projects, according to this year’s Social Media in a Project Environment survey.

The 2011 results show how project managers around the world are using social media tools to manage projects and lead teams. There was lots of interest in the uses of social media for project teams during the last two years (for example, my book, the Virtual Working Summit and Bas de Baar’s work, especially his presentation at the PMI EMEA Congress in Amsterdam).  This year shows that interest and experience of using social media tools at work is continuing.

Here are some of the trends:

Comparing the 2010 and 2011 survey results

Many senior managers still fail to see the benefits that social media tools used professionally at work can bring. However, many workplaces are becoming more aware of the importance of tailoring communication channels to how the recipient wants to receive information. We need to tailor the way we communicate with project team members to ensure we are easy to work with, and that we work in ways that make sense to them.

Podcasts are not used enough for learning

One of the most interesting results for me was that podcasts and video podcasts are among the least used tools. When I started working in healthcare I listened to healthcare podcasts on my commute to work. They helped me quickly learn the jargon of my new sector and feel less of an idiot when people in meetings used words that were unfamiliar. There are lots of good project management podcasts, some of which, like The PDUCast, contribute to maintaining your professional credentials (this is an affiliate link).

I strongly recommend that if you don’t listen to podcasts for professional development, that you find some you like and start doing so. If you are responsible for coaching and mentoring project teams consider using them as low-cost, vehicles for training material.

Over 40% use tools unofficially

The scariest statistic from the survey was that 42% of people said that they are not officially sanctioned to use social media tools at work, but they do so anyway, an increase of 4% from last year.

IT managers and PMO teams need to wake up to the idea that employees are finding ways to use social media tools at work whether they have been officially sanctioned or not. Software installed outside of the official channels could be a security risk, it probably isn’t backed up and there is no visibility of it should the company need to provide information for audits or Data Protection Act subject access requests. If you are part of the 42% please talk to your IT team! If you don’t feel you can, please get in touch. I’m really interested in learning more about the reasons behind this result.

Get the full version of the survey results here.

Related posts:

1. Social Media in a Project Environment: 2011 Survey Results The 2011 Social Media in a Project Environment Survey results are now available. Key highlights: 20% more people are using blogs for business use than...
2. Social Media in a Project Environment: 2011 Survey This year I am once again running the Social Media in a Project Environment survey.  This time last year lots of you completed the survey...
3. Social media in a project environment – the results Earlier this year I ran a survey looking at the uses of social media and enterprise collaboration tools in a project environment.  Thank you, if...

The Arras People 2011 Benchmark Report is out – and this year the study shows some interesting facts about pay.

Pay for female project professionals peaks at the £30k to £40k salary band.  Salaries for women over £65k are rare, and only 15% of women earn over £50k.

Male salaries plateau between £30k and £50k with 47% of the male project community falling into this section.  Another 40% earn over £50k.

Fair enough: you probably will find more women in project co-ordinator or support positions, or in part-time roles.  But when you look at the respondents who specifically identified themselves as project managers, there are interesting parallels.

The gender balance is almost even between men and women earning less than £30k. The most common salary for female project managers falls in the £30k to £40k bracket. We see gender balance again in the £40k to £50k range, but – as reflected in the overall analysis – 30% of male project managers earn over £50k, compared with only 12% of female project managers.

Perhaps it is because we are paid less that women manage the cheap, small projects. Something isn’t right there.

The situation for contractors

The gender pay gap for contractors is widening.  Last year 38% of women earned £349 per day, compared to 32% of men. This year, more men have shifted into the higher paid bracket of £350+ per day, while 49% of women now fall into this bracket.

Only 15% of female contractors earn between £500 and £749 per day, compared to a third of men.

Is maternity pay an excuse for sexism?

Just for the record, sexism at work is not allowed, although you only have to speak informally to women to know that discrimination of all sorts is still very much a part of working life.

Alistair Tebbit, Institute of Directors spokesman, believes sexism at work will get worse with the EU voting to extend maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay. “It is not desirable for the EU to create a large tax, in effect, on employing women,” he said. “Such a step is unlikely to improve the prospects of women in the workplace.”

MEPs also voted to give men two weeks’ paternity leave at full pay. The European Council now has to discuss the proposals, and this could take some time.

I’m all for laws increasing maternity pay, but I’m also keen to see effort put into enforcing some of the equal pay legislation we already have. In the meantime, women (pregnant or not) have 58 years to wait before they earn the same as their male counterparts. I really hope we can do better than that.

Related posts:

1. Research shows women don’t want management jobs Intellect’s Women in IT Forum and womenintechnology.co.uk recently released the results of their survey about women working in the technology profession. The survey shows that although...
2. Can you wait 58 years to earn the same as your male colleagues? Just as Sarah Brown is launching her new initiative, Women: Inspiration and Enterprise, we get news of more evidence of discrepancies in women’s pay. The...
3. Women manage the cheap, small projects: new research on International Women’s Day 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.  Today, people all over the world are celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women...

Email sent! Please check your inbox for the download link.

This year I am once again running the Social Media in a Project Environment survey.

This time last year lots of you completed the survey and the results (which you can access on my blog; scroll down to Social Media Survey Results 2010) provided a snapshot of how social media tools were being used by project managers and in project environments.

In case you missed it, the survey is open until the end of the month, and I would really value your input.

Thanks for contributing!

Take the survey now!

Related posts:

1. Social Media in a Project Environment: 2011 Survey This year I am once again running the Social Media in a Project Environment survey.  This time last year lots of you completed the survey...
2. Social Media for Project Managers: survey Happy New Year! You might have seen the little pop-up box which is appearing on this blog at the moment* which talks about a survey....
3. Social Media in a Project Environment: 2011 Survey Results The 2011 Social Media in a Project Environment Survey results are now available. Key highlights: 20% more people are using blogs for business use than...