Is your leadership a hidden project killer?

Have you ever delivered what you believed was a clear direction to your project team, only to discover weeks later that they understood something entirely different? Or perhaps you've championed open communication, yet feedback reveals your team sees you as unapproachable?

This gap between your intent as a leader and how your team perceives that intent isn't just an uncomfortable reality; it's one of the most significant yet overlooked threats to project success.

As organisations invest heavily in sophisticated project management tools, methodologies, and AI-driven analytics, we're becoming increasingly adept at managing the technical aspects of project delivery. Yet projects continue to fail, and often the root cause isn't found in the Gantt chart or the risk register. It’s a human problem most often found in the space between what leaders think they're communicating and what their teams actually understand.

More elaborate planning frameworks and governance processes won’t solve this problem, but cultivating our emotional intelligence, and specifically one key skill, Applied Curiosity, will.

The Real Cost of Misalignment

When your team's perception of your leadership doesn't align with your intentions, the consequences cascade through every aspect of project delivery. Team members start to second-guess decisions, stakeholders disengage, and the psychological safety required for problem-solving and innovation evaporates. Trust is dented, and everything slows down.

Empowerment can be perceived as disinterest. Autonomy might feel like abandonment. Some of the most capable executives I've worked with have been genuinely shocked to discover this perception gap

The perception gap isn't about their competence; it is about awareness.

The harsh truth is that our intentions as leaders don’t matter as much as how we're perceived.

Applied Curiosity: A Framework for Closing the Gap

Applied Curiosity offers project leaders a systematic approach to identifying and addressing perception gaps before they derail delivery. Unlike passive curiosity, simply wondering about things, Applied Curiosity is a deliberate process that transforms how we gather information, make sense of it, and take action.

The Applied Curiosity Model consists of three interconnected phases: Research, Reflect, and React. This creates a virtuous cycle where each revolution builds on the previous one, continuously refining our understanding and improving our leadership effectiveness.

When we apply this framework to guide our actions and address a challenge such as the perception gap, we move from unconscious misalignment to conscious, informed leadership that drives project success.

Phase 1 - Research: Discovering How You're Really Perceived

The research phase is where we actively gather data about how our leadership is being experienced. 

We can start by having conversations with the project teams at all levels. Sounds simple, and on the surface it is.  However, we need to be self-aware when we do so and recognise that we will apply our own distortions and perceptions to the conversations.  

Naturally, we will seek out information that confirms our views, so we need to be able to put our confirmation bias to one side and to ask great and balanced questions that explore all the options.  We need to listen to what we hear with the intent of understanding what we are being told, rather than answering or correcting the speaker.  And that can be hard when we are used to setting direction.

Doing this will deepen your relationships and generate feedback you can take action on, so it is a great start; however, it will be coloured by the very perceptions you are trying to understand.  

To get an accurate picture, we are going to need to lean into the wisdom of the crowd as the more people we ask, the closer we will get to the truth.  But let’s be real, you don’t have time to talk to everyone, so a well-constructed survey-based approach that looks into the factors that perceptions impact, like how trusted you are, your ability to influence and how you apply your leadership, can provide the human-centric data needed to get a more complete and actionable picture.  Combining this with a neutral third party asking the questions and the technology available to us now, this can be done in but real time.

Phase 2 - Reflect: Making Sense of What You've Discovered

Gathering data is valuable, but without reflection, it's merely noise. The reflect phase is where we assimilate what we've learned, add context, and determine its relevance.

In the fast-paced, busy world we inhabit, especially around projects, making time for this phase is often rushed or skipped altogether.  Yet it is where we turn the data we have collected into actionable insights and build a genuine understanding that enables better leadership choices.

It’s time to examine patterns in the feedback you're receiving.  What themes are there? What might people be missing?  What assumptions have you made that need to be challenged?

Reflection also allows you to explore how new insights link to everything else you know about effective project delivery. For example, how does this perception gap relate to recent project delays, to stakeholder concerns? 

Reflection does not have to be a solo activity; consider discussing your findings with a trusted colleague, coach, or mentor who can help you see blind spots and find the connections.

Phase 3 - React: Taking Action That Drives Project Success

Understanding the perception gap is valuable, but without action, it's merely an interesting academic exercise. The react phase is where we form hypotheses about what might work and experiment to see what happens—creating new information that starts the Applied Curiosity cycle again.

What the best actions are will, of course, depend on the insights you gain in the reflection phase.  Do you need to provide extra information or clarifications, extra guidelines, or do you need to take some away?  Do you need to change your behaviours?

I encourage you to experiment with different approaches and observe the results. How does team behaviour shift when you explicitly address the perception gap? These experiments provide new data that feeds back into the research phase of the next cycle of Applied Curiosity, creating continuous improvement in your leadership effectiveness.

The Strategic Imperative

For C-suite executives and decision-makers, addressing the perception gap through Applied Curiosity isn't just about being a better leader—though it certainly achieves that. It's about removing a critical barrier to project success and organisational performance.

When your team's perception aligns with your intent, trust grows, decisions flow more smoothly, escalations happen at the right time, innovation flourishes, and projects deliver not just on technical metrics but on the human outcomes that drive true organisational value.

Applied Curiosity transforms this from a one-time exercise into embedding a critical leadership capability. The research-reflect-react cycle becomes part of how you lead projects, creating continuous feedback loops that prevent small misalignments from becoming project-derailing crises.

In an era where we're investing millions in project management technology and methodology, perhaps our greatest return on investment comes from investing time in understanding how we're actually experienced by the people we lead.

The questions I would like to leave you with

The question I would like to leave you with is this: What would you discover if you got genuinely curious about the gap between your leadership intentions and how your team experiences them?

This article was published in Enterprise Vision Magazine's Project Management Edition.

Is being technically brilliant enough to be successful as a PMO Professional?

Being able to lead a PMO that adds value to the organisation you support and that is a true strategic partner needs you to be more than just a technically brilliant PMO professional.  Yes, you need to understand and be great at using your PMO skills, but that alone will not get you the career you are looking for.You need to be great at the people things too - and that is where your emotional intelligence comes in.

That’s why some PMO people seem to navigate complexity and stakeholder challenges with ease, whilst others, despite similar technical expertise, struggle to gain traction. You may have heard of these people-based skills referred to as soft skills - that’s not a name that has ever resonated for me - they are at least as difficult and complex as technical skills, and without them, your technical skills will only get you so far.  I prefer the term power skills as they power up your career.  Their complexity, however, does not mean that you have to spend a fortune developing them.  There are lots of things you can do alongside your day-to-day role to build them - you can read more about them here.

These skills are also widely misunderstood, often being wrapped into leadership or people skills and the development of those.  So, let’s break it down a bit and from a PMO perspective, let’s start by understanding what Emotional Intelligence actually is.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence, which is measured as your EQ, is the ability to recognise, understand, and manage both your own emotions and those of the people around you. It's about being aware of how emotions influence behaviour and decisions, and how it impacts those around you.  It is then about using that awareness to build stronger relationships, make better choices, and create more effective outcomes.

Let's get curious about what makes up emotional intelligence and why it matters so much to you as a PMO leader.

The Five Elements of Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman, the psychologist who popularised the concept of emotional intelligence, identified five key components that work together to create EQ.  Once we understand those, we can start to look at how we best develop our overall EQ.

Let's explore each one.

1. Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is your ability to recognise and understand your own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, values, and motivations. It's about knowing what triggers you, understanding how your mood affects your decisions, and being honest with yourself about your capabilities and limitations.

As a PMO leader, self-awareness allows you to understand how you are impacting your working world and for example, to understand when your frustration with a project delay is clouding your judgment, or when your enthusiasm for a particular approach might be preventing you from hearing valid concerns from your team.

2. Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is the capacity to control or redirect disruptive emotions and impulses. It's about thinking before acting, maintaining your composure under pressure, and adapting your response to suit the situation rather than simply reacting to it. It is about recognising and using the power of the pause!

That's one of the things I hear almost every day from PMO leaders: the challenge of staying calm when plans change, deadlines shift, or stakeholders make unreasonable demands. Self-regulation is what enables you to respond thoughtfully rather than reactively, maintaining your credibility and effectiveness even in difficult moments.

3. Motivation

In the context of EQ, motivation refers to your internal drive to achieve goals for reasons beyond external rewards like money or status. It's about having a passion for the work itself, persistence in the face of setbacks, and optimism about what can be achieved.

Leaders with high intrinsic motivation inspire their teams through their commitment and resilience. They're the ones who remain focused on the bigger picture when projects face obstacles, and who help others see challenges as opportunities for learning rather than just problems to endure.  

Developing this ability to help our teams and the projects we support stay motivated, avoid burnout out and focus on what we are really trying to achieve will position us to lead a PMO that becomes a key enabler in our organisations.

4. Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It's about recognising emotional cues, considering different perspectives, and genuinely appreciating how situations affect the people around you.

Yet, we know that empathy in a PMO context isn't about being soft or avoiding difficult conversations. It's about understanding what motivates your project managers, what concerns your stakeholders have, and what pressures your delivery teams are facing. It allows us to have those challenging conversations in a constructive way and to dissolve conflicts around our programmes.  This understanding allows you to communicate more effectively, resolve conflicts more easily, and build the trust that's essential for successful delivery.

5. Social Skills

Social skills encompass your ability to manage relationships, build networks, find common ground, and influence others. This includes communication, conflict management, collaboration, and the capacity to inspire and develop people.

Your social skills enable you to negotiate with stakeholders, facilitate difficult conversations, build cross-functional relationships, and create an environment where your team can do their best work. These are the practical applications of all the other EQ elements working together.

As you can see, there is some overlap between the five elements, but they provide a useful framework for us to use when considering what elements of our Emotional Intelligence we are going to develop.

Why Should Having a High EQ Matter to You as a PMO Leader?

Now, whilst technical skills and process knowledge are essential in PMO leadership, they only tell part of the story. Your working world is filled with competing priorities, resistant stakeholders, and teams under pressure. In these situations, it's your EQ that determines whether you can create the trust and collaboration needed to deliver results.

Building Trust and Credibility

Trust isn’t just a feel-good factor—it’s a strategic advantage. Research shows that high-trust teams outperform low-trust ones in virtually every key metric, from productivity to innovation, in every environment and not just projects.  When trust is present, employees feel empowered, accountable, and motivated, all of which contribute to smoother project execution and ultimately better business outcomes.  We are operating in a time where trust is a scarce and fragile resource, so building and protecting it matters more than ever.

The top 8 benefits of developing a high trust environment around projects that I regularly see are, as they say in all the best awards ceremonies, in no particular order, the benefits are:

1. Faster Decision-Making and Problem-Solving

2. Enhanced Collaboration and Communication

3. Increased Accountability and Ownership

4. Higher Engagement and Productivity 

5. More Innovation and Creativity 

6. Stronger Conflict Resolution 

7. Greater Resilience Under Pressure

8. Improved Stakeholder and Client Relationships

Navigating Resistance and Change

The resistance we face to our initiatives, our processes, or our governance requirements is real and something we face daily.  In my experience, that resistance is rarely about the logic of your approach – it's almost always emotional.

When you have high EQ, you can get curious about what's really driving that resistance. Is it fear of additional workload? Concern about losing autonomy? Uncertainty about capability? By recognising and addressing the emotional dimension, you can navigate resistance far more effectively than by simply presenting more rational arguments or asserting your authority.

Making Better Decisions Under Pressure

PMO leadership involves constant decision-making, often with incomplete information and competing demands. Your emotions inevitably influence these decisions, whether you're aware of it or not.

Leaders with high self-awareness recognise when stress, frustration, or overconfidence might be affecting their judgement. They can pause, regulate their response, and make more considered choices.

Developing High-Performing Project and PMO Teams

Your project managers and PMO team members need more than clear processes and good templates. They need leaders who understand their individual motivations, recognise when they're struggling, provide support that's tailored to their needs, and create an environment where they can develop and grow.

While the technical mentoring you can provide is valuable, it's your emotional intelligence that enables you to truly develop people. Empathy helps you understand what each person needs. Social skills allow you to give feedback effectively. Self-regulation models the composure and professionalism you want to see in your team.

Creating Strategic Influence

Let's take a moment to think about your influence as a PMO leader. You need to influence without authority, gain buy-in from senior stakeholders, and shape organisational approaches to delivery and change.

Yet, we know that influence isn't achieved through logic alone. It requires understanding your audience's concerns, timing your messages appropriately, building relationships over time, and adapting your communication style to different people. These are all functions of emotional intelligence, particularly empathy and social skills.

You can read more about engaging Stakeholders here.

Conclusions

As I have been writing this post I have had an earworm (a song that I just can't get out of my head.  At risk of highlighting my age, and passing on that earworm,  as the Bananarama and Fun Boy Three song goes, 'it ain't what you do but the way that you do it that gets results'.  This is so true of our work in PMO, and developing our EQ is all about the way we do the things that we do.

And our EQ, just like our technical skills, is something we can develop.  

You can read more about developing your EQ in a budget friendly way here.

The questions I would like to leave you with

There is always room to develop our EQ and the question I would like to leave you with is

If you were to develop your EQ, which of the Benefits of having a High EQ would make the biggest difference to you?

You know you need to develop your emotional intelligence but you don't have a budget for that.

Over the years, I have noticed how much easier it is to get budget to spend on the tools of our trade and other tangible things than it is to get authorisation to spend on things like your development, let alone soft skills development.  And I understand that,  it is much harder to quantify what will be different as a result, and given the current economic climate and uncertainties, the need to be prudent is magnified.

And that leaves us with a quandary: we need to develop our EQ to be as impactful as our organisation needs us to be, and if we are being brutally honest, to protect our careers, but we have little or no budget to develop the very skills we need to do that.

Why you need to develop your EQ

Whatever leadership or project role you are in, your emotional intelligence matters just as much, if not more than, your technical skills.  This is especially true in roles like the PMO, where you are bridging the gap between strategy and the teams charged with executing that strategy.  The constant project pressures, stakeholder demands and the sheer number of projects in our programmes and portfolios serve to emphasise this key differentiator between an adequate PMO person and a PMO Professional who makes an impact and adds valueWhen we have a higher EQ (the measure of our Emotional Intelligence) you can expect to experience many benefits which fall into these categories.

1. Building deeper levels of Trust and Credibility

2. Navigating Resistance and Change with more ease

3. Making better decisions under pressure

4. Developing high-performance project and PMO teams

5. Becoming strategically influential

So how can you develop your EQ in a budget friendly way?

So I am going to share two things that can help!

1. How to use Applied Curiosity to develop your EQ
2. A free download with over 40 budget friendly and free tools and techniques you can use to develop your EQ

The Applied Curiosity Model is a power tool that can be used in a number of ways to develop your Emotional Intelligence.  You can use it to structure your development, to develop each of the elements of Emotional Intelligence and within each development activity.

2. Reflect: Creating Meaning from Multiple Perspectives

This is the powerful pause between something happening and how we react.  It is about creating the time to think, to challenge ourselves and our assumptions, to consider the context we are working in.  We need to synthesise all the different inputs, all the research and think about how everything links together.  It is our chance to consider the trade-offs that there will be from various courses of action.

As we create our plan to develop our EQ the reflection stage would include considering which tactics we are going to use to develop the particular skill, how we might evaluate our progress and the potential impact of each. At this stage, we are generating options rather than committing ourselves to a specific set of actions.

3. React: From Insight to Value-Adding Action

The React Phase of the Applied Curiosity Model is where we truly unlock the power of our Curiosity.  Without this phase, our curiosity remains an interesting but academic exercise.

Download the free Ebook

I have collated over 40 tools and techniques that you can use yourself and with the people you work with to develop your Emotional Intelligence.  All the tools and techniques are either free or very low cost, and you can start using them right away.

You can download your copy here.  

You will be asked to create a free account so you can download the ebook and I  promise you will not be bombarded with multiple or regular emails when you do!

Conclusions

Developing your Emotional Intelligence will allow you to leverage your technical skills and support you in many other areas of your life, both in work and outside work.  It is something that we can all always work on, but it does not have to cost us a fortune to do it.  Yes, Coaching and Mentoring are the best ways to develop your EQ, but we don't always have the budget for them.  Using the Applied Curiosity Model is a great place to start, and the 40 tools and techniques in the free ebook will support both you and your team in developing your EQ and your effectiveness.

The questions I would like to leave you with

What is the biggest difference you think developing your EQ would make to you and how are you going to start?

Have You Ever Had a Brilliant Idea That Never Saw the Light of Day?

You know that feeling, don't you? You've had what feels like a game-changing idea for your organisation. Something that could genuinely make a difference. But then reality hits - how on earth do you get senior stakeholders on board?

Let's get curious about why so many brilliant ideas remain just that, at best, becoming ideas gathering digital dust deep in someone's folders,  rather than transformative initiatives that drive real change.  

As well as being wasteful, it is frustrating on a personal level, especially when you see less powerful or impactful ideas being championed.

Why Stakeholder Engagement Matters More Than Your Brilliant Idea

The harsh reality is that the quality of your idea matters far less than your ability to engage the people who can make it happen.

Research by Deloitte shows that companies actively managing and engaging stakeholders are up to 36% more likely to see positive project outcomes. 

Yet how many of us actually invest the time upfront to understand what really matters to the decision-makers in our organisations?  Unless we really understand what matters to them, how can we know if they will even entertain our idea?

In my experience, most of us rush the initial stages of stakeholder engagement and that not only means that great ideas fall by the wayside, but for those ideas that are taken up, there are consequences right through the project lifecycle and beyond:

• Projects are more likely to fail or be cancelled outright
• Cost overruns become inevitable
• Timelines slip
• Resources get misallocated across the organisation
• Internal credibility takes a significant hit
• Future innovation capacity diminishes as people become reluctant to support new initiatives

Understanding What Senior Stakeholders Actually Care About

So, we know we need to understand our senior stakeholders, but how do we do that.  It’s time to get curious about what's really driving them.

McKinsey research consistently identifies several themes that occupy C-suite attention: strategic alignment, financial performance, risk management, stakeholder value, digital transformation, sustainability commitments, and talent management. These are the publicly stated priorities, and our experience tells us two things: firstly, that we need to get really specific about these publicly stated aims and secondly, that their personal motivations and agendas are just as important.

Typically, these hidden motivations will be around three broad areas.

1. Career protection and advancement.  They may be focused on the legacy they want to build and the reputation they want to create and maintain, they may be thinking about avoiding career-damaging failures or the view of their peers and their industry standing may be driving them.  They may also be thinking about their next career move and positioning themselves for that.

2. Control and Influence.  Your Stakeholders may be driven by maintaining or extending their control and influence, looking to build their own fiefdom. They may be concerned with maintaining their decision-making authority or span of control, or possibly maintaining their organisational power structure.

3. Signs of Personal Success.  Top of their hidden agenda could be things like performance against their individual targets, the bonus or compensation implications of what you are asking them to consider or the Board or Investors' perceptions of them as an individual.

Knowing which of these board factors are at play for your stakeholders is not, however, enough if you are looking to really understand them, build a trust-led relationship with them and engage them in the ideas you are proposing.

Firstly, the Applied Curiosity Model can provide you with a plan for your approach.  The three phases of engaging your senior stakeholders in your idea mimicking the three stages of the Applied Curiosity Cycle.As we look to answer the three central questions, we are going to need to start with a Research Phase. 

• Who the key stakeholders are likely to be
• What their public and private agendas are
• What concerns the stakeholders have

The research is likely to be mostly be conversations with the stakeholders themselves, but can also be based on what you already know and the ideas and suggestions of others.

Next will be a Reflect phase, where you pull together everything you have learned from the conversations you have held and your observations with what you already knew.  In this phase, you will be reflecting not only on the best positioning for your idea, but also any refinements you need to make to the idea based on the new information you have gathered.  

As well as making it easier to talk about our idea in a way that is meaningful and appealing to the stakeholders we are looking to engage in our idea, integrating this new information almost always results in an even more powerful solution.

But planning is not the only time that using the Applied Curiosity Model will help us engage Stakeholders in the idea we want to propose.

Using the Applied Curiosity Model during your Stakeholder Conversations

The Applied Curiosity Model can also be a great way to structure your conversations with your Stakeholders.

We know we are going into these conversations with some things we are looking to find out, but going in with a curious mind doesn’t necessarily help you know how to manage the conversation and get the outcomes that you want.  

Done right, these conversations are a great opportunity to build your relationship with the stakeholder, build trust and demonstrate your value, not through talking about it but by showing the stakeholder your value in action.

I suggest positioning the meeting along the lines of ‘I have had an idea, and before I work on it any further, I want to understand if it is actually going to be of value to use. I appreciate your perspective and would like to ask you some questions.’

Having positioned the meeting, you are going to start with the Research Phase, leading with some great questions that explore the stakeholders' public and private agendas.  Great questions are ones where the person being asked is able to answer them in a number of ways, where the answer is not obvious from the question and where the person answering has to think a little.  In this case, we will be asking about what matters to them at work at the moment and how that aligns with the corporate agenda and other projects and programmes that are being worked on at the moment.

As you go through the meeting, you will be reflecting to summarise what you have heard and check that your understanding is correct.  You will also be discussing with the stakeholder how the various ideas interact and either align or don’t align.Iterating between research and reflection will allow you to dig deeper into your Stakeholders motivations and develop a greater understanding of them as you also build your relationship.

Using the Applied Curiosity Model after your Stakeholder Conversations

After we have completed our conversations with our stakeholder(s), we need to make sure we are leveraging them.  The Research phase of the Applied Curiosity Cycle, after our conversations, focuses on collating everything that we have learned from the conversations and any other sources, such as published strategies and agendas.

The Reflection phase is where the magic happens.  This is where we move from data gathering to genuine understanding.

One of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is often forgotten, but is just as true today as when he wrote it in 1989, is  "Seek to understand before being understood." People want to know that you genuinely want to hear their perspective first.

During reflection, consider:

• How does your idea align with both the stated organisational priorities AND the personal motivations you've uncovered?
• Does what the stakeholder says match with what you see them doing?
• What language resonates with each stakeholder group?
• Where might competing agendas create challenges?
• What evidence do you have that this idea will deliver measurable outcomes?

Once you have reflected, you will be in a position to form a working hypothesis about how to engage your stakeholders.  It is then time to React and plan your next steps

• How will you feedback to the stakeholders?
• How are you going to position your ideas?
• What do you need to do next?
• Who else do you need to talk to?

Conclusions

Using an Applied Curioisty based approach allows us to truly understand our stakeholders’ perspectives and agendas.  It also allows us to verify our brilliant idea and make sure it is the right idea for the organisation at the right time.

This approach allows us to refine the ideas so that when we position them to the stakeholders to find our champion and build our stakeholder coalition.  Additionally, as we have been doing this, we will have built trust with those stakeholders, which should smooth the path not only of this idea as it becomes a project but also all our other projects, programmes and the entire portfolio.

The questions I would like to leave you with

Now, one of the things I often hear is: "I just don't have time to do all this upfront work."

But two questions I would like to leave you with are:

1. Do you believe your idea is brilliant enough to be worth investing a little of your time in?

2. If it is, do you have time not to do the upfront workt?

The time you invest in stakeholder engagement before your idea becomes an active project will save weeks or months of frustration later. 

So my final challenge to you is, what if it's actually the difference between your brilliant idea succeeding or joining the graveyard of good intentions?

Quoted References:

Covey, Stephen.  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Deloitte. Stakeholder Capitalism Study. Deloitte Insights.

McKinsey & Company. CEO Excellence Research. McKinsey Global Institute.

Why setting goals in September is better than setting them in January, and how this reset could give you the boost you have been waiting for and save your sanity at the same time. 

There is power in pausing and resetting

As leaders, rather than just jumping in and taking action, one of the most powerful things we can do is to press pause, evaluate where we are, reset and then get going.  Yes, it is another example of using the Applied Curiosity Cycle.  This reset process is applicable at every level, but every now and then, we can all benefit from looking at our working worlds more holistically, and September is a great time to do that.

Have you ever wondered why September feels like a fresh start, even more than January does?

You know that feeling—the one where you suddenly want to buy new stationery, reorganise your office, and tackle those goals you've been putting off since spring. It's not just nostalgia for school days. September represents a mental and emotional shift for many of us, offering a renewed focus on routine, responsibilities, and preparation for the months ahead. And often we approach September feeling refreshed and rested from our summer.

Let's get curious about why embracing the new academic year feeling could be exactly what you and your business need right now.

Why September Is Your Business's Second New Year

January gets all the glory as "resolution season," and along with the glory comes the weight of expectations and all the pressure to plan perfectly for a new year.  And I don’t know about you, but January is also the point in the year when I have the least energy to do the important thinking and planning that is needed.  I’m not alone in proposing that September is a better time for refreshing your business and planning what to do next.

And when you think about it, this makes perfect sense.

For most of our lives, September has symbolised a new beginning—it doesn't matter if you graduated 20, 30, or 40 years ago. That conditioning runs deep, and we can harness it for our business advantage.

But there's more to it than childhood memories. January is often such a miserable time, where we have the post-Christmas blues, and the weather is darker, and days are literally shorter. In September, we're still enjoying the final embers of summer, so you may have the energy so making changes feels more manageable.

Think about your business right now. You've likely had some sort of summer change of pace and quite possibly a slowdown—whether that's fewer client meetings, team holidays, or simply a more relaxed pace. After the distractions and downtime of summer, September offers a chance to reset and refocus. There is a 'back to school' feeling as we settle into our work routines.

Yet we have all been there, back and caught up in the busyness of our day-to-day work and running around going nowhere like hamsters on a wheel before the end of our first day back!

That's exactly why making the most of the transition time and taking control of your September reset is so crucial.

Now here's where we can make this reset really work for you. Rather than diving headfirst into new goals and strategies, let's apply my Applied Curiosity Model to create lasting change.

The Applied Curiosity Model follows a simple cycle: Research → Reflect → React. When we apply curiosity as a set of skills to a structured process, change becomes something we can develop and truly harness.

1. Research: What do you need to know for an effective September Reset

Let's get curious about where you actually stand right now:

• What were your goals at the start of the year, and where do you stand with them?
• What is working well for you?
• What has prevented your progress so far this year?
• What assumptions were you making about your business environment that have changed?
• What is making you more or less money than expected (or than before)?
• What challenges are your clients facing now that they weren't facing six months ago?
• How are you feeling about your business?

This isn't about judging yourself for what hasn't worked.  If we consider that we have been conducting a series of experiments, we are just collecting the results so we can form a new and improved hypothesis and see how that goes.

It is important not to dwell on the things that haven't happened - take them into the next stage and reflect on why they did not happen - there may well be very good reasons, and once you have figured out why you are then in a position to decide if you should still pursue that part of the plan or if you should adjust your course.  If you are feeling frustrated,  you can use that to motivate this September Reset.

2. Reflect: Making sense of what you discovered

Now it's time to add context to what you've researched. 

This reflection phase is crucial. It's where you connect your research to your aspirations, your past experiences, and what you're trying to achieve. Ask yourself:

• How does what I have found this year relate to what I have previously found?
• What links and themes can I see in what I discovered?
• How am I feeling about what I am noticing?
• Which things do I want to change?
• What could I do to change them?
• How could I take advantage of the current business environment?
• What matters most to me right now?
• What have I learned that I want to take forward into the next set of plans?
• What does your ideal end-of-year look like?
• What will make this year a success? What are the most important things to achieve?
• What would need to change for you to feel genuinely excited about the next quarter?

Don’t rush this phase, the answers may or may not come quickly.  Journaling and making notes or mind maps may really help you in this phase.  You also don’t have to go it alone, you could work on this with a coach,  mentor or even a business buddy.  And if you have a team, you could involve them. 

3. React: Taking action that actually works

This is where the magic happens. Based on your research and reflection, it's time to create experiments you can implement immediately.

There are only really three questions to consider in the React Phase

• What hypothesis am I going to test this quarter and what results do I expect them to give?
• What actions are you prepared to commit to taking to test out the hypothesis?
• When am I going to take them?

It can be very tempting to overcommit and overcomplicate your action plan. Keep it simple, make a list of all the things you could do, pick the 3 that are going to make the biggest difference and then schedule time to do them.  When they are done pick the next 3 and so on.

Your September Action Plan

So, are you ready to harness the power of a September business reset and approach the rest of the year with that back to school energy and excitement? 

Here's an example plan to get you started:

Week 1: Research Phase

• Conduct an honest assessment of where you stand with your year-to-date goals.  The questions above and in this download will help.
• Gather feedback from your team, clients, and stakeholders about what's working and what isn't
• Research what's changed in your industry or market since spring

Week 2: Reflect Phase

• Schedule proper thinking time (yes, actually block it in your calendar)
• Work through the key reflection questions above
• Identify your top 3 priorities for the remainder of the year.  Consider getting the help of a mentor or coach for this.

Week 3: React Phase

• Create your action plan with specific, tangible tasks.  Again a mentor or coach will be able to help you with this
• Communicate your renewed focus and direction to your team if you have one
• Set up accountability measures to keep yourself on track, and consider working with an Accountability Partner

Moving Forward:  The choice is always yours

The beauty of embracing the academic year mindset is that it reminds us that learning and growth are continuous processes. Our motivation can be boosted with simple changes like a different office layout. Even new stationery can help, as we all remember from our school days!

You don't have to wait until January to make changes. You don't have to accept that this year's results are already written in stone. You have a choice right now about how you want to approach the next four months.

Remember, this isn't about perfection or dramatic transformation. It's about applying curiosity to understand your situation better, making conscious choices about what to focus on, and taking consistent action towards what matters most.

As I often say to the leaders I work with, you are the expert in your business. No one knows your situation, your challenges, or your opportunities better than you do. But sometimes we all need to step back, get curious, and make space to think about what we really want to achieve.

And yes, I have some things that can help you.

The Accountability Advantage could be exactly what you need to maintain momentum through your September reset. For just £30 per month, you'll have a dedicated accountability partner (me!) providing weekly check-ins, monthly focus sessions, and the tools to turn your good intentions into consistent results.  You can read all about them here.

For more complex challenges, Curiosity Mentoring Sessions offer the chance to work through your specific situation with using the Applied Curiosity Model and benefiting from my 30 years of business leadership and leadership development. Whether you need a single breakthrough session or a longer-term accelerator programme, these sessions provide the space to think, plan, and act with confidence. You can read more about them here.

Or if you are looking to totally refresh your planning to build a solid foundation, ask me about my Steps to Success Planning Workshops - they will soon be available online!

The question I would like to leave you with

Your September reset starts with a single curious choice. What choice will you make today?

Quoted References:

Ohio State University, Lead Read Today. "Why Most New Year's Resolutions Fail." https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/leadreadtoday/why-most-new-years-resolutions-fail

Baylor College of Medicine. (2024). "New Year's resolutions: Why do we give up on them so quickly?" January 11, 2024. https://www.bcm.edu/news/new-years-resolutions-why-do-we-give-up-on-them-so-quickly

nc.com. (2020). "A Study of 800 Million Activities Predicts Most New Year's Resolutions Will Be Abandoned on January 19." February 6, 2020. https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/a-study-of-800-million-activities-predicts-most-new-years-resolutions-will-be-abandoned-on-january-19-how-you-cancreate-new-habits-that-actually-stick.html

A PMO Leader's guide to using Applied Curiosity to transform stakeholders' perception of your value as you move from giving them outputs to delivering outcomes 

A Harsh Reality - Your outputs don't create value in their own right

There is something I have heard a lot lately from PMO leaders: "We're producing everything the business asked for, but they still don't see our value."

Sound familiar?

If you're nodding along, you're certainly not alone. In fact, this challenge is so pervasive that research from Monday.com in 2025 shows 50% of PMOs close within four years - now some of those PMO’s were never intended to last forever and were just set up for a specific programme, but for other that closure is not because they don't deliver what they promised, but because they can't demonstrate the value of what they delivered.

And here is the harsh truth - no matter how well you are delivering the agreed outputs from your PMO that is not what your senior stakeholders value.  Adding more graphs and data, no matter how brilliantly it is presented, is not going to change that.

So, are you ready to explore what's really happening here?

Your are speaking different languages

Your PMO might be delivering excellent outputs - those shiny methodologies, comprehensive reports, standardised templates, and governance frameworks. You're ticking every box on the deliverables list, following best practices, and meeting every deadline.

Yet stakeholders are asking that uncomfortable question: "What's the PMO actually doing for us?"

The challenge isn't your competence. It's that you're speaking in outputs whilst your stakeholders are thinking in outcomes.

Let's get curious about this fundamental disconnect. What do we mean by each?

Outputs are what you produce: the methodology document, the monthly dashboard, the training session. These are the tangible deliverables or products/services of the PMO.  They are the tangible items.

Outcomes, on the other hand, are what changes because of your work.  Things like improved project success rates, better strategic alignment, enhanced decision-making capability, and measurable business value. These are the success criteria or the measurable result of successful completion of the output, for example 100% consistency in projects due to the standard use of the project management methodology. They are also what matters to your senior Stakeholders.The work is the same, but how it is presented and talked about makes all the difference to how it is perceived.

The Reality Behind the Statistics

What I find fascinating is how widespread this challenge has become. The Project Management Institute found that 78% of high-performing organisations have a PMO, yet The Hackett Group's research simultaneously showed that organisations with high PMO use often had higher IT costs and failed to deliver projects with higher ROI (PMI, 2013).

This paradox tells us something crucial: it's not whether you have a PMO that matters - it's how that PMO positions itself and demonstrates value.

This is where Applied Curiosity becomes your not-so-secret weapon. When we consider applying our curiosity as a set of skills that we apply to a process, then curiosity becomes something we can develop, and that we can really harness as leaders.

The Applied Curiosity Model offers a structured approach through three interconnected phases: Research, Reflect, and React.

Let's explore how this can transform your PMO's positioning from output-producer to outcome-creator.

1. Research: Understanding what really matters

The Research phase is where we gather data, find information, discover facts and opinions. We're exploring using skills like listening to understand, asking great questions, and reviewing what others have done.

For PMO leaders, this means getting curious about:

I worked with one PMO leader who discovered through this research phase that whilst they were producing detailed monthly reports, their key stakeholders were actually making decisions based on informal corridor conversations. The reports - their proud output - weren't even being read.

Sometimes I am sure we all wonder if that is what is happening!

2. Reflect: Making Sense of your research

Reflect is where we assimilate and add context to what we have found, turning our data into information we can base our next steps on. Reflection creates the opportunity to add in our reactions, feelings, aspirations, hopes, and what we have learned in the past.

This is where you get curious about things like:

For example, if your reflections showed that you have been measuring success by the number of processes implemented and the number of process non-compliances, while your stakeholders are measuring success by project delivery speed and costs, there is always going to be a disconnect.  

The good news is that this kind of thing is totally solvable.

3. React: Transforming Your Approach

This is the 'so what' stage of the Applied Curiosity Cycle - where we take what we have found and take action on it. 

Your reaction phase might include:

Practical Examples of the Transformation

Let's look at how this could look in practice:

The shift isn't just cosmetic - it requires you to fundamentally think differently about your role. Are you a producer of PMO services, or are you a creator of business value?

And while we are thinking about how we communicate differently, I think it is important to remember that different stakeholders and different stakeholder groups will have very different outcome priorities based on their roles in the organisation.  Listening to the things they talk about, the language they use and listening to really understand their perspectives is critical, especially during the research phase of your transformation.For example, Senior executives might care about strategic alignment and ROI while Project Managers might value improved delivery capability and reduced administrative burden and Functional managers might focus on resource optimisation and risk reduction

If you want to know more about listening to understand, click here

These unconscious biases are not the only challenge to overcome when you are planning this transformation

When you are planning your transformation to an outcomes-focused PMO, there are some other things you need to get curious about solving

How are you going to measure your outcomes?  It is relatively easy to measure your outputs, the number of reports you produce etc.  Measuring your outcomes is more complex and typically takes longer since the outcome may well not be instant.  Often, the outcomes may not be felt in the short term.  Planning for both quick wins and the longer-term outcomes  from the start will help you build in the various considerations along the way

Will your initial processes, systems and outputs actually deliver the desired outcomes?  We need to remain focused on the outcomes while having a degree of flexibility about how we get there.  Do you need to modify what you are doing and your outputs along the way to get to your intended outcomes?  Regular periods of reflection will help you here.

How well aligned are your stakeholders?  With multiple stakeholders come multiple agendas.  Ensuring you are reflecting each of the stakeholders' criteria for success can be challenging, but it is also an opportunity to demonstrate true business partnering value as you help them align and engage with your programmes.

Building Your Outcome-Focused PMO

So what does this mean for you practically? Here's how to use Applied Curiosity to drive your PMO transformation:

Start with the Reseach

Begin by mapping your stakeholder landscape. Who are the people whose perception of your PMO matters most?

For each group, research:

The PMO 360 Tool can simplify and accelerate this process.

Move into Reflection

Take time to think about what you've discovered. How does it compare with what you currently deliver? Where are the gaps? What assumptions might you need to challenge?

This reflection time is crucial; it involves giving yourself time to think and adding some structure to that thinking time to enable you to formulate the best possible plan

Take Action Through Reaction

Based on your research and reflection, begin experimenting with new approaches.  These may include things like:

The Ongoing Journey

Remember, this isn't a one-time fix. The Applied Curiosity Process is a virtuous circle, with each revolution building on the previous one. Your stakeholders' needs will evolve, your organisation's strategy will shift, and your PMO must continuously adapt to remain relevant.

If you take nothing else from this article, here are the three key principles to remember:

Outputs are only valuable if they create outcomes

Your methodology document is just paper until it becomes improved business outcomes

Stakeholder perception is shaped by unconscious bias

Take time to really understand them and then address them through structured communication and education.  Remember you have unconscious biases too!

Applied Curiosity provides the framework

Use Research, Reflect, React to continuously align your PMO with evolving stakeholder needs.

The question I would like to leave you with - are you ready?

So, are you ready to transform how your PMO is perceived?

Your PMO's survival - and success - might depend on your willingness to get curious about this fundamental shift from outputs to outcomes.

The Next Steps

The Applied Curiosity Model gives a simple and effective way to start transforming how your PMO is perceived.  If you are curious about how applying this approach to your PMO could impact your work and your leadership, let’s chat.

Quoted References:

Bourne, L. (2006). Supersizing PMO performance. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2006—Asia Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand. Project Management Institute. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/supersizing-pmo-performance-stakeholder-relationship-7640

Duggal, J. S. (2006). In the pursuit of the elusive: showing PMO value! Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2006—North America, Seattle, WA. Project Management Institute. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/pursuit-elusive-pmo-value-6873

HotPMO. (2025, January 25). 6 Cognitive biases that PMO professionals need to be aware of. Retrieved from https://www.hotpmo.com/blog/6-cognitive-biases-that-pmo-professionals-need-to-be-alert-for/

Monday.com. (2025). How to build a strategic PMO framework in 2025. Retrieved from https://monday.com/blog/project-management/pmo-strategy/

PMI. (2013). Unleashing the power of the PMO. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-management-office-strategic-goals-4122

ProjectManagement.com. (2017). Talking in business speak about PMO value. Retrieved from https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/27653/talking-in-business-speak-about-pmo-value

The Power of Trust

Why PMOs need to develop High Trust Environments to drive Influence and Impact 

Here is what you need to know.

Recently, I have been having more and more conversations about how having the right tools, techniques, and processes is not enough to ensure project success or for the PMO team to have the impact and influence they could be having in the business.

It is down to the people, their skills, knowledge and behaviours.  

And in my experience there is something that goes beyond even this - since I came across Stephen Covey and Rebecca Merrill’s Book The Speed of Trust, and started applying it to my work, I have noticed that the most successful leaders, especially in the world of project and programme management are those who have established a high level of trust across their organisations.

Their ability to build and sustain the trust of the people they work with individually and as teams, regardless of the pressures they are under, determines how successful their departments are in delivering value to the organisation.

So why does trust matter in a project environment?

Trust isn’t just a feel-good factor—it’s a strategic advantage. Research shows that high-trust teams outperform low-trust ones in virtually every key metric, from productivity to innovation, in every environment and not just projects.  When trust is present, employees feel empowered, accountable, and motivated, all of which contribute to smoother project execution and ultimately better business outcomes.

Based on my experience working in the project and PMO space, here are the top 8 business benefits I have seen when leaders, including PMO leaders, create a high-trust environment in and around their projects and programmes.  As they say in all the best awards ceremonies, in no particular order the benefits are:

And these benefits or trust advantages all enable the PMO to increase it's impact and influence.

There are some additional trust challenges that PMO leaders face that other organisational leaders don't:

Without trust, PMOs become bureaucratic obstacles; with trust, they become strategic enablers of organisational success.  This makes Trust Building essential if a PMO wants to become a true strategic partner and wants to have both influence and a positive impact.

How can you tell if your PMO needs a strategy to build trust?

Creating a high level of trust in the PMO and within the projects and programmes that the PMO is supporting has significant benefits, but how can you tell if there are trust issues that it would be valuable for your PMO to address?

Typically, if your PMO is in a low-trust environment, you will notice one or more of the following 

And by contrast, where your PMO is operating with a high level of trust, you will be reducing your trust tax bill and you will be able to observe the following:

Ways of Evaluating Trust in your PMO

However, you may also have concluded that you need more information.  Given that trust is two-way and operates on a number of levels, this will often be the case for the curious PMO leader who is always seeking improvements.

Since trust in relationships and departments operates in both directions, understanding other people’s perceptions of how trusted and trustworthy you and your PMO are will be important in understanding how you can develop deeper levels of trust and gain greater benefits as a result.  Getting feedback and talking to the people you work with about the levels of trust that operate will be one way to collect this valuable perspective.

However, if you are operating in a low-trust environment, the information that is shared in these conversations will be limited and guarded.  We don’t share as much information as freely with people we don’t know we can trust.  So the effectiveness of this method of exploring the level of trust in your PMO is limited in its effectiveness.

Employing survey techniques can unlock this, especially when the survey is managed by a third party and the motives for undertaking the survey are discussed and clearly communicated in advance.

Useful Models for Understanding the Elements That Help Build Trust

Since trust in relationships and departments operates in both directions, understanding other people’s perceptions of how trusted and trustworthy you and your PMO are will be important in understanding how you can develop deeper levels of trust and gain greater benefits as a result. We need to get a more detailed breakdown than just a trusted or not.The research gives us several models for understanding how we build trust.  Trust operates at different levels, and in my experience, different models are helpful for giving us a platform to understand where our opportunities to improve trust are.

The foundation for trust is how trustworthy we are as individuals and in our relationships, our personal credibility and congruence, and our consistency with others. Covey and Murell talk about Four Cores of Credibility for us to think about and evaluate ourselves against, especially when we are looking at our personal trustworthiness.

Additionally, Brene Brown’s Braving Framework can be very helpful, especially when we are looking at how trustworthy we are in our relationships and interactions with others

When we look at the functional or departmental level, the trust model I have found to be most helpful is the one described by  David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford in their book, The Trusted Advisor. 

They developed the following trust equation,

Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self Orientation

These models each give us lenses to look at how we and our teams build trust and when we evaluate ourselves against them can give us valuable insights into where we can make gains in building high trust working environments and benefit from the power of trust.

The Next Steps

Understanding the current levels of trust in your PMO and in the projects, combined with your strengths in the different components that enable trust to grow, will provide the information you need to build a trust-building strategy that will enable your PMO to benefit from all the available advantages of a high trust environment.

If you are looking for a detailed independent analysis of trust in your PMO and in your project teams, click here to find out about the PMO360 or book a call to discuss your situation.

Why showing your appreciation at work matters to project team motivation

We all like to be appreciated. Whether it’s a simple wave from a fellow driver when you give way or a ‘thanks’ when you hold open the door for somebody, little acts of appreciation go a long way to making the world a better place.

It’s no different in the working environment and especially in the stressful and fast-paced world of projects. Project team motivation brings its own set of challenges and failure in this area can even put the delivery of the project at risk.

One of the challenges faced by project managers is that we are often not the line managers of the team involved, which means we have to rely on our leadership skills rather than any positional authority we may otherwise have. 

It also means we need to build and strengthen our relationships with those working on the projects, often in a short space of time, so that when things get tough – as they inevitably do on a project – people stay with us and keep performing at their best when we need it the most.

Working under pressure, or in environments which people find stressful, increases the risk of sickness and people choosing to leave their roles – and key points in projects are particularly vulnerable. One way we can reduce the risk of this happening is by showing appreciation for those working on the project. 

Such project team motivation doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming; it’s something we can easily build into how we lead our teams on a day-to-day basis.

How we experience appreciation

One thing which is important to understand is that we don’t all experience appreciation in the same way; Gary Chapman and Paul White describe these differences as different languages we each speak. In their book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, they explain that while we all understand all five languages, we each have a preference.

The languages are:

1. Words of Affirmation – being praised for our accomplishments, our behaviours and our character.

2. Quality Time – receiving focused attention, preferably one-to-one.

3. Acts of Service – having someone volunteer to do something that helps us.

4. Tangible Gifts – being given a thoughtful token that shows we have been appreciated.

5. Appropriate Physical Touch – a well-timed high five or handshake.

With all of the languages, the key is to be thoughtful, intentional, personal, specific and sincere, all the time recognising people as individuals and for their particular contribution. 

Some of the things we can do to show our appreciation are specific to a certain language, while others can work for more than one language. 

For example, taking a team member out for a coffee gives them a tangible gift (the coffee), some quality time, as well as words of affirmation if you give them positive feedback or tell them how you have appreciated their input. It can also be an act of service if you know your coffee-loving colleague does not have time to make or get it for themselves at the moment!

We all know we perform at our best when we feel appreciated and valued but how can we create this culture of appreciation for those who work around us? 

Where possible, project team motivation needs to become part of everyday working life, rather than saved for major milestones. That way, you build a reserve of appreciation that can act as a boost to performance and a buffer against challenging project circumstances.

A note of caution

It's really important that when you show your appreciation work it is sincere and shows that you know the person you are appreciating.  One project manager I worked with decided to show his appreciation to the most under appreciated member of the team by buying her a bottle of wine and a big box of chocolates - because he had never had a conversation with her he didn't know she was a diabetic who didn't drink.  The result was the exact opposite of the one he intended, and the whole project team's motivation went down and he had a lot of work to do to repair it.

10 Simple and cost effective ways you can show your project team you appreciate them

1. Take someone for a coffee.
2. Put a note on their desk recognising an achievement or simply thanking them for their effort.
3. Thank people – both privately and publicly in meetings. Even if you do this when the person concerned is not present, it conveys to the wider team how much you appreciate them. 
4. Start a ‘wisdom wall’ showcasing the great and insightful things people have said on the project – this can be a physical wall in the office, or a virtual pinboard.
5. Create a welcome pack for new project team members and add a personal note explaining why you are pleased they are joining the project.
6. Leave a thoughtful gift on someone's desk, not necessarily work-related – but make sure it’s something you know they will like.
7. Treat the team to a meal; breakfast rolls, lunch or even a takeaway if everyone is working late.
8. Give some unexpected time off (when the plan allows) to enjoy doing something with their friends or family.
9. Create a team gallery to introduce everyone – who they are, what they do, their interests and something positive about them. To inject a little humour, you could even make this into a ‘Wanted Gallery’; each person is ‘wanted’ for achieving a certain aspect of the project. Another idea is to create cards in the style of football/baseball or ‘Top Trumps’ cards, highlighting people’s key achievements and attributes. If you have a physical gallery, these could be used as thank you gifts at the end of the project.
10. Take time just to chat with people – and not about the project. Make sure you really listen to them; learn everyone’s name and a little about them.

These are just some of the day-to-day ways you can practise project team motivation. 

Key milestones in the project are an opportunity for a whole-team celebration and another way to show your appreciation for their efforts. But occasional lavish gestures are less valued than continued appreciation at work. 

Aim to make project team motivation an everyday habit; challenge yourself to find at least one opportunity a day to show your appreciation for the people working on your project. Making this a part of how you act and who you choose to be as a leader will pay dividends.

Traditionally, developing your career in the PMO was based on having great technical skills but increasingly this is no longer enough. Being a great PMO professional means becoming a trusted business partner who delivers services the business values and that requires supplementing your technical skills with coaching skills.

The growing need for Coaching Skills for PMO Professionals can be seen in the increasing number of job adverts for PMO roles asking for coaching skills, and that trend is growing as Agile Project Methodologies become more prevalent.  

As I have worked with PMOs I have noticed how adding coaching skills has benefited team members at all levels, from the most junior to the PMO Leaders, and how actively developing them has boosted the team’s effectiveness and individuals’ careers.

So what do we mean by Coaching Skills for PMO Professionals?

For me, the best definition of coaching comes from Sir John Whitmore in his book Coaching for Performance, where he describes coaching as “unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their performance”.

Coaching skills span a whole continuum of ways to work with someone, from telling them what to do, through teaching, consulting, mentoring and coaching.  As you move along the continuum, the focus shifts from the coach’s knowledge and agenda to that of the person being coached.

The coach uses their coaching skills and facilitates tools to improve the performance of others. The knack of finding a delicate balance of coaching which works for everyone is definitely more of an art than a science!

When I shared the continuum of coaching at a PMO Flashmob session most people found that they spent time moving up and down the scale from telling and showing to mentoring and coaching on a daily basis – and sometimes even within one meeting!

Why does having coaching skills matter in the PMO?

Last year, the AIPMO (Association of International Project Management Officers) Advisory Board published a list of seven principles for PMO practitioners, four of which relate directly to coaching skills for PMO:

1. Sponsorship (PMO Principle 1)
   Coaching skills are not just for training your staff; you can use them to build your relationship with your sponsors using coaching skills, which is critical to your success. With an improved understanding of their agenda, and an ability to help them articulate what needs to change and why, it is easier to explain your solutions and get their buy in. The skills developed in coaching will also help you align agendas within the business. 
2. Challenge (PMO Principle 4)
   The skilful use of coaching tools will provide objective, rational and constructive challenges as you help your stakeholders explore situations and understand the options they have. In doing so, they will also allow you to create and develop trusted partnerships.
3. Exemplar (PMO Principle 6)
   In the course of using your coaching skills, you lead by example. A consultative coaching-based approach has consistently been shown to be the most effective at leading change. And, at the end of the day, your role is to effect change.
4. Improvement (PMO Principle 7)
   The very definition of coaching is to facilitate improvement, which is why this is the last – but most definitely not the least important – of the principles for PMO practitioners. 

​Developing Coaching skill for PMO Professionals

As I have already mentioned, coaching skills are not just for those in PMO leadership roles; they are useful for all those working in the PMO. They can make a huge difference even at the most junior level. Imagine you have been asked to compile the minutes for a meeting. This requires listening skills, the ability to summarise and report accurately what has been said, and the ability to ask questions which clarify thinking. Holding these skills can make a huge difference to the quality of minutes being taken and their usefulness.

As your career progresses, you may find yourself training others, or switching between consulting and coaching roles. For example, one of the project leaders you are working with may hit a problem and require your help to work out how to get through it – and your coaching skills will be invaluable.

Coaching skills for PMO are beneficial to everyone working within a team, not just for those in management roles but for many different work situations and at different stages of your career. They help a project run smoothly, with better communication and greater clarity all round.  To be the best PMO professional you can be, you need to work on developing these coaching skills and keep building upon them throughout your career.

The British pantomime tradition is something of a rite of passage for audience members, creative teams and the performers themselves. I expected many things when I agreed to direct the village panto a few years ago, but I did not expect to learn some key lessons in project management.

Act 1, Scene 1: Setting the scene

When you embark on your project/panto quest, knowing why you are doing it makes every other decision easier.  For us, panto was all about bringing the community together, fostering a love of theatre and developing people’s skills.  

Taking time to agree on that before we did anything else allowed us to speed up many decisions and ensure the way we worked together supported our goals.  For example, it led us to change the audition process from the traditional ‘contest’ to one where future cast members showed us their full performance potential, safe in the knowledge that we would find a great part for them.

Act 1, Scene 2: We’re all in this together

Panto is known for its larger-than-life characters and sometimes it feels the same is true of projects. I’m sure I’m not the only one who can think of a few workplace divas and villains! But it is not just the main players who keep the show on the road.  

It was only the second performance of the first panto I directed when I learned that one of the key lessons in project management is the importance of building a strong team beyond just the main players. One of the leading actors failed to show up on stage when they should have done, leaving three young and inexperienced cast members stranded mid-scene. It was a joy to see the whole team come together to keep the show going so the audience didn’t notice.  

It turned out that the missing cast member was looking for a prop that one of the backstage team had helpfully moved to the side of the stage so it was handy for them. Another lesson learned; even teams with the best intentions and a shared vision need to remember to communicate effectively.

Act 1, Scene 3: Coming up with a plan

When planning a pantomime, different teams come up with lots of plans. The set builder may want to design a set before you have even decided what show you’re doing; the choreographer may demand more dance rehearsal hours than there are rehearsal hours in total; the costume team may want to save time by deciding who plays which role based on the costumes that fit, and so on.

While project teams in workplaces are used to sharing the plan and working with its interdependencies, this was not a way many of our panto team had ever worked before and this director learned another key lesson in project management the hard (and stressful) way; the importance of reminding people frequently and clearly how what they do fits in with everyone else. Not to mention how changing their plan (once they had one – but that’s another story) impacted everyone else, so communication was critical.

Act 2, Scene 1: Would you believe?

A panto story is full of twists and turns – and I don’t just mean the scripted ones! Just like the risks on a project, thinking through what could go wrong and having a risk management plan for the more likely and higher impact ones is vital.  

Working with an inexperienced team showed me how important it is not to make assumptions when you’re thinking about possible risks. What was obvious to me was not always obvious to them. Asking them what they thought could go wrong was not only a great team-building exercise but allowed us to plan for every eventuality and build the team’s confidence.

I am glad we never had to implement our plan for the curtain not opening – but I must say, however, that I am very pleased we’d planned what to do if an audience member fell ill.

Act 2, Scene 2: The Finale

I loved working with our panto team and bringing the complex needs of all the different stakeholders together. Their agendas differed widely, from parents managing their children’s needs and very busy diary, to raffle ticket sellers striving to make lots of money for the village, to the cast and crew who simply wanted to put on a great show and have fun. 

A key lesson in project management was remembering how important it is to keep everyone engaged and how different things mattered to each group. Managing their different priorities certainly sharpened my negotiating skills.  

However, the final lesson came after the end of the production. The village hall committee decided they needed to make more money – and that they could do that by bringing in a professional panto team who would pay them for the use of the hall.  This decision, made without consultation and while our panto representative was on holiday, brought down our final curtain and, as well as reminding me how to disband a team with dignity, taught me a lesson in keeping project goals and business goals aligned.

​So next time you are sitting in a project meeting, remember:

• Booing and hissing the villain isn’t recommended, however tempting it may be;
• The hero gets the girl (their goal) and baddies all turn good in the end;
• Behind the scenes, someone is learning some key lessons in project management!

While for now my pantomime days are behind me, the lessons I learned are still benefiting me and the projects I am involved with. Underpinning the work I do on project initiations is remembering that investing the time and effort to set things up right at the start of the project accelerates overall progress and reduces the challenges you face along the way.