Hoyle Tanner’s Project Managers are extremely important to the success of our clients’ projects, our teams, and our firm. Investing in our most important asset, our team members, is not only good business – it is a core commitment of our firm. We realize the need for our Project Managers to have great proficiency with our internal processes for managing projects, such as comprehensive scoping and project understanding, excellent relationships with our clients, internal controls for quality control, scheduling and budget monitoring. A few years ago, we also realized the need to have the input from external industry leaders to reinforce these skills for increased effectiveness and efficiencies. We began a proactive investment program to provide our project managers training through an industry-recognized program called the PSMJ Project Manager Bootcamp. We chose this intense two-day program due to its regional and national in-person offerings, and its legacy of providing solid instruction and talking points related to cutting-edge as well as tried-and-true project management techniques. Our research indicated that the program paired well with our own Project Management Manual and internal processes creating an opportunity for enhanced management skills that we could easily incorporate into our established routines. We were also open, however, to making adjustments to our processes based upon what was learned from the training.
We have sent nearly 20 of our project managers to the program in the past three years and are committed to continuing this investment annually to ensure all of our project managers, (experienced and up-and-coming) are able to receive the best tools we can provide to promote their success. Some of the goals of undertaking this investment include:
- Being better stewards of our clients’ project budgets to optimize their project investments
- Increasing team member engagement during the design process with improved management soft skills
- Increasing our ability to meet project design schedules
- Improved project manager career satisfaction
- Enhancements to our internal processes
- Improved efficiencies for the firm
So far so good.
In the past few years, we have seen a decrease in project amendment requests due to better initial project scoping and fee development, a decrease in the number of over-budget projects, increased adherence to project design schedules, and improved effectiveness of our projects. The feedback from our project managers has been positive as well with each of them taking away different tactics that they are employing on their projects, leading to higher satisfaction.
Project management in the consulting engineering profession can be challenging, and without the right tools it can also be stressful and unrewarding. Our commitment to the success of our project managers is significant and the investment in the Bootcamp, combined with other recent investments such as leadership training, is helping us meet the changing and increasingly complex needs of our team members. If you want to be part of a team that invests in your success contact Human Resource Director Judy Donovan-Hann or see our website for more opportunities.
