Individual Competence Baseline for Programme Management

1. Introduction

The IPMA Individual Competence Baseline (IPMA ICB®) is the global standard for individual competence in project, programme and portfolio management.

The IPMA ICB supports the development of individual competence through the presentation of a complete inventory of competence elements across projects, programmes and portfolios.

IPMA’s goals with IPMA ICB are simple – to enrich and improve the individual’s competence in project, portfolio and programme management and to provide an inventory of competences that, if fully realised, represent complete mastery of these management domains. Projects, programmes and portfolios are at the forefront of change in the world today. Projects drive the development of new products and services, investments and expansion, capabilities, the implementation of new strategies and a new generation of infrastructure. We recognise that projects begin and end with people and that competent execution is at the heart of every successful project.

The burden has never been higher for project, programme and portfolio managers to produce measurable results on time, on budget, within scope and while meeting the quality criteria. The IPMA ICB competence standard is intended to support the growth of individuals and also of organisations as they grapple with increasingly competitive project environments. The IPMA ICB describes a comprehensive inventory of competences that an individual needs to have or to develop to successfully master the work package, the project, the programme or the portfolio that the individual is tasked to manage.

However, the IPMA ICB is not a ‘how to’ guide or a cookbook for managing projects, programmes or portfolios. Therefore, it does not describe the processes or steps involved in project, programme or portfolio management. While it offers more in competence development of individuals involved in project, programme and portfolio management, it can be used alongside other global process-oriented standards.

To everyone who uses the IPMA ICB, we wish you a successful journey!

2. Purposes and intended users

2.1. Definition of competence

There are many definitions of the term ‘competence’ around the world. The IPMA Individual Competence Baseline (IPMA ICB®) presents a plain English definition that is widely accepted by professionals and is intended to be recognisable and readily understood. This definition is not intended to minimise or supersede any other definition, but rather to provide guidance to the individual seeking improvement.

Individual competence is the application of knowledge, skills and abilities in order to achieve the desired results.

•Knowledge is the collection of information and experience that an individual possesses. For example, understanding the concept of a Gantt chart might be considered knowledge.

•Skills are specific technical capabilities that enable an individual to perform a task. For example, being able to build a Gantt chart might be considered a skill.

•Ability is the effective delivery of knowledge and skills in a given context. For example, being able to devise and successfully manage a project schedule might be considered ability.

These three terms are related in that having a skill presupposes some relevant knowledge. Having ability presupposes relevant skills and knowledge, but adds to that the use of these in practice, in the right manner and at the right time.

What about experience?

Experience plays a significant, though indirect, role in competence.

Without experience, competence can neither be demonstrated nor improved. Experience is a key success factor to the growth of the individual. To successfully perform assigned roles, individuals need to accumulate sufficient experience and thus complement the potential for their competences.

Therefore, state of the art certification and assessment systems do not assess knowledge alone, but focus on competence together with experience gained. The IPMA ICB addresses - as a standard for competence - those factors that are directly correlated with competence.

2.2. Audiences and uses

The IPMA ICB is intended to support a wide range of audiences across many uses. It was developed and written with these audiences in mind. The following table describes the audiences and possible uses of the IPMA ICB. This list (in alphabetical order) is by no means exhaustive.

2.3. Individual competence development

2.3.1. Overview

The development of competences is both an individual journey and a societal need. IPMA recognises competence today as a function of the individual, the team and the organisation.

•Individual competences address the knowledge, skills and abilities through experience;

•Team competences address the collective performance of individuals joined toward a purpose;

•Organisational competences address the strategic capabilities of a selfsustaining unit of people.

Motivation theory and current research results show that individuals strive to develop their competences in order to perform better in their current position, to get more and more interesting tasks and to enhance their career opportunities. Project, programme or portfolio related work is based on collaboration with team members from all kinds of disciplines, internal and external parties (such as clients and suppliers), and therefore competence development happens in such collective settings. Project experience adds to the competence of every individual and also to the teams and organisations as social systems.

The focus of the IPMA ICB is the individual. Therefore, this document elaborates on developing individual competences. But there is no single way of developing competences. In fact, there are many approaches which could interact with each other. The interactions between individual, collective and organisational competence development offer different approaches to the development of individual competences together with stakeholders, prerequisites and requirements.

The IPMA ICB is neither a cookbook nor a textbook in the field of project, programme and portfolio management. It is a standard, defining the competences needed by an individual acting in a certain domain and performing the desired result. The target readership and stakeholders shall better understand the competences needed and derive actions on how to acquire, assess and develop such competences.

2.3.2. Individual, team and organisational competence development

Competence development is intermingled with the activities in the project, programme and portfolio itself and, of course, its context. Teams are social systems, as are the embedding organisations, as can be seen in the IPMA Organisational Competence Baseline (IPMA OCB®), the IPMA Project Excellence Baseline (IPMA PEB®) etc.

Competence development happens when individuals perform activities according to their specific roles and thus acquire new knowledge, skills and abilities. They interact with others and could share knowledge, could exchange experiences and/or support each other in performing the activities in a project, programme or portfolio. A community of practice is one example of individuals interacting in a formal or an informal way and collectively developing their competences. The individual could use a community of practice to facilitate learning through discussing, experimenting and reflecting on all kinds of practical issues. It is also a means to feed information back to the embedding organisation that could make use of the lessons learned in other projects.

Organisations could also make use of communities of practice on a corporate level and facilitate the development of individual competences through regular events. For example, a best practice in many organisations is to offer a project managers’ round table. Project managers come together on a regular basis, exchange experiences from finished or actual projects and collect lessons learned to be used in future projects. More information on organisational learning and competence development is provided in the IPMA OCB.

2.3.3. Approaches to the development of individual competences

There are various approaches to the development of individual competences. Typically, it depends on the preferences of the individual or the organisation, the situation and the availability of resources, which one fits best and is chosen.

•Self-development , (e.g. reading books, standards, case studies and articles) helps to gain knowledge, reflect on the application in practical situations and derive learnings from that. Other ways of self-development are studying, experimenting, trying things out or learning by doing. The latter helps to gain experience in a certain context or to develop certain skills.

•Peer-development , (e.g. reflecting with colleagues on how things are going, asking for feedback on their own performance and ways to improve it). Learning partners from different disciplines could help to see a situation from a different angle and apply the development to the benefit of both peers (e.g. one through the questions asked and the other through the insights provided).

•Education and training , (e.g. attending a seminar, lectures and training sessions, where the trainer delivers specific know-how). This could be done through a presentation, interactions between the participants and the trainer as well as using case studies, group exercises and simulation games. The development of individual competences may depend on the number of participants, the mix of methods used or the duration of the sessions.

•Coaching and mentoring , (e.g. getting feedback, advice and support by a coach, leader or mentor whilst performing certain activities or striving to develop specific competences). Typically, a coach, leader or mentor is an experienced person that does not deliver direct answers, but challenges the individual through questions that draw the attention to certain aspects and requires finding an adequate answer.

•Simulation and gaming, (e.g. developing competences through case-based simulation games (board or computer games), reflecting on interactions and behaviours of individuals shown in such a setting). Often simulation games and other forms of game-based learning are a mix of approaches e.g. enabling self-development combined with peer-development and coaching in a training environment. It could also be helpful to combine these approaches based on previous experiences, the stage of development an individual is at or the possibilities of the organisation.

2.3.4. Competence development stakeholders

There are many stakeholders to consider for the development of individual competences, including but not limited to the following:

•Teachers, educators and trainers: their role is primarily to start the development during school, vocational and professional training as well as during graduate and postgraduate studies.

•Top management, senior executives and heads of functional departments in organisations: their primary role is to set goals for the development, to provide necessary resources and to support the individuals during their development (e.g. showing a good example and giving guidance).

•Human resource (HR) department: the role of this department is to define standards, (e.g. a competence model and competence profiles for projectrelated roles). The HR department plans and controls all activities regarding the recruitment of individuals with an adequate profile. It organises the process of competence assessments and all development activities.

•The project management department or the project management office: it defines the strategy and the goals for all project managementrelated development activities, supports the development through coaching, mentoring or training and enables the collective and organisational competence development through joint activities of all individuals involved in projects and programmes. External experts such as consultants and coaches could be involved to make the most out of existing experiences.

•Standard-setting bodies, accreditation centres and certification bodies: they set standards for the individual competences, the way in which competences are assessed against the standards, how trainers, coaches and assessors shall operate and which competences they require in order to act in a professional manner.

•Assessors: they assess individuals based on a standard, identifying the strengths, the gaps to a defined threshold and ways to develop the individual competences within defined rules.

2.3.5. Prerequisites for effective competence development

Before starting with competence development, several prerequisites should be considered and if possible fulfilled. Firstly, the actual situation and the target state of the individual competences should be known and communicated to all stakeholders. Secondly, there should be access to expertise (e.g. know-how, experts) and sufficient resources (e.g. budget, time). It is important to create a culture in which the development of competences is perceived to have added value and moved an organisation forward. This added value could be proclaimed through a corporate culture, backed by the examples that leaders demonstrate and so contribute to the atmosphere in which the development activities take place.

Top management, together with the HR and project management department or project management office should define their vision and goals for the development of individual competences by defining the standards, processes and structures for the development of individual competences. This may include, but is not limited to, the