Title: Bricolage or Making Best Use of Available Methodologies Topic: Developing professionals for the 21 st century Dr Ian Cammack [email protected]
Aug 08, 2015
Title: Bricolage or Making Best Use of Available Methodologies Topic: Developing professionals for the 21st century
Dr Ian Cammack
Objectives: • To disseminate doctoral research project on ‘Becoming a
Project Manager’.
• To share ideas about practice development for early career practitioners.
• To offer an invitation for dialogue about developments on both sides of the “border”.
A Personal Journey
Complicated Systems Complex Systems
A job well done?
44% of humanities & social science students felt their course represented good value. BBC 22nd June 2015
Bloom’s Taxonomy
http://tips.uark.edu/using-blooms-taxonomy/
• A man may well learn to talk about taking action simply by talking about taking action (as in classes at a business school) but to learn to take action (as something distinct from learning to talk about taking action) then he needs to take action (rather than to talk about taking action) and to see the effect, not of talking about taking action (at which he may appear competent) but of taking the action itself (at which he may fall somewhat short of competent).
(Revans 1971 pp. 54-5 original emphasis).
Becoming a Project Manager
Firefly moments
The world of practice
• What were your fire-fly moments as you entered the profession?
– Critical moments that defined your practice +ve / -ve
– Key conversations +ve / -ve
– Reflections & sense making +ve / -ve
• Capture & summarise (patterns / common themes etc. ) these to share
APM Bok v.6
Stage 1: Early career practitioners word cloud
Source: 100 dissertations (10,000 words each) from MSc students Discussion of the similarities / differences with the world(s) of the audience
APM BoK v.5
Concepts Procedures
Organising Analysis
Sense- Making
Commun- ication
Experience General- isation
Decision Making
Problem Solving
Commun- icating
Co- operation
Leader- ship
Negotia- tion
Influenc -ing
Initiative
Internalis- ation
Follower- ship
Strategic
Copes with Ambiguity
Relational
Collabor- ative
Goal Directed
Integrity
Emotionally Intelligent
Reflexive
Aware of context
Systemic Eloquence
Factual Knowledge • Facts • Structures • Procedures • Concepts • Principles
Experiential Knowledge • Experience • Internalisation • Generalisation • Abstraction
Mental Skills • Organisation • Analysis • Evaluation • Synthesis
Information Skills • Acquisition • Recording • Remembering • Communication
Action Skills • Communicating
Decision Making • Problem Solving • Takes Initiative
Social Skills • Co-operation • Leadership • Influencing • Negotiation
Mental Characteristics • Strategic • Agility • Flux • Creative
Attitudes • Pluralistic • Relational • Dialogical • Collaborative
Personality • Openness • Integrity • Goal Directed
Mindfulness • Contextual
Awareness • Emotional
Intelligence • Reflexivity
Cognitive Affective
Kn
ow
led
ge
S
kil
ls
Per
son
al
Q
ua
liti
es
Adapted from Carter, 1985 p. 146, Cammack 2013 & Zenger et al 2011
Ways of Knowing: Artisan
Knowing
• “...and the final product ultimately depends on the requirements of the stakeholder” (student cohort 5)
• “Viewpoints are heterogeneous and come from all stakeholders” (student cohort 6)
• “... the most important practice is stakeholder communication in general and [specifically] client engagement...” (student cohort 7)
Bricoleur
Levi-Strauss: A"bricoleur" performs tasks with materials and tools that are at hand, from "odds and ends."
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/ 2013-07/29/heath-robinson-deserves-a-museum
Doing
• “...at the same time it has posed a question [about] how should I manage my stakeholder in order to influence their level of expectation?” (student cohort 5)
• “The biggest issue here is that I did not involve the key stakeholder enough in the beginning of the project.” (student cohort 7)
• “As the project went on, we noticed that communication with the stakeholders was not as easy as we thought.” (student cohort 8)
Mindful Practitioner
http://stonebalancing.com/index.php/galleries/special-limited-edition-collection#1-6902
Being
• “I realised that if I had adopted good stakeholder management process, there would have been more collaboration and less conflict” (student cohort 5)
• “As a professional project manager I feel it is vital to manage other stakeholders’ emotions and opinions without letting them affect my emotions, opinions and relationships with other stakeholders.” (student cohort 6)
Education needs to be more than cognition
Career Planning
What do you do to support the career development of the early career practitioner?
• Knowing • Doing • Being
How effective (i.e. leading to long term success) are these strategies?
Practice Development
• Performance Reviews
• Action Research
• Action Learning & Learning Sets
• Zone of Proximal Development / Reflection
• Mentoring
• Coaching
Ackoff’s f-laws
• “Managers who don’t know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure”
http://www.f-laws.com/pdf/A_Little_Book_of_F-LawsE.pdf
Next Steps
• Invitations
– for dialogue with your organisations
– practice development work initiatives
– support your networks of early career practitioners
Dr Ian Cammack
• Ackoff, R. (2006) A Little Book of f-laws: 13 Common Sins of Management
http://www.f-laws.com/pdf/A_Little_Book_of_F-LawsE.pdf
• Carter, R. (1985) A Taxonomy of Learning Objectives for Professional Education. Studies in Higher Education Volume 10, Issue 2, 1985
• Zenger, JH, Folkman, J & Edinger SK (2011) Making Yourself Indispensable. Harvard Business Review
https://hbr.org/2011/10/making-yourself-indispensable/ar/1