Marriage guidance for project managers?

A recent APM Aberdeen Chapter one day conference offering project management professionals the opportunity of Developing your skills for successful projects, suggested that marriage guidance techniques could be of value to project managers

A presentation by Raymond Stadnik, from Monitor, was particularly intriguing, because of a suggested approach to whats normally called supply chain management.

Projects frequently have a wide and varied supplier list several contractors, then sub-contractors, then freelances, and then parts and component suppliers the list of people and organisations involved can run into thousands, and a key role of the project manager is to manage those relationships.

Raymond  suggests that, rather than a hard-nosed traditional we want it right and we want it on Thursday approach to supplier management , project managers should think more about relationship management and to that end, hes including training sessions from Relate, the marriage guidance counselling service, to help project managers understand how to get the best from their suppliers.

Its not the first time that marriage guidance has had an impact on successful projects the National House Building Council included training the spouses of their Inspectors to understand the scope of the impact of computer technology on their reporting and audit systems, so that when the dining room got taken over by the laptop, the family understood what it was about!

The Aberdeen Conference also  included workshops on CV development and skills analysis, as well as planning for CPD (continuing professional development) and the use of tools such as the APMs competence framework to evaluate skills and competence at organisational and team level, as well as for the individual. Its one of the many events run nationwide by regional branches of the APM to find out more visit the events section of the APM website.