On the 7th of February leading professionals in digital project management (DPM) convened for a round table discussion session hosted and led by Craig Buchanan, Digital Programme Manager at ACCA Global. The event was held under Chatham House Rules but there were some top level observations and learnings to share.
Discussion included what it meant to be a DPM, you need to: also be an account manager; know your UX and UI; be across your tech specifications; understand your client; manage your people and keep control of your budget. It is a pretty difficult role to recruit for.
Leading the session, Craig identified key areas for discussion which resonated with everyone in the room:
– Client needs
– Emerging tech
– Changing methodologies
– Role understood
– Organisation structure
– Project to product
– Diversifying skills set
– Customer experience
And another one was added from discussion: resource
Much of the discussion anchored around client needs, changing methodologies and the role of a DPM.
METHODOLOGIES – How do you take a business with you on changing methodologies? In fact changing methodologies is impacting all other things.
THE CLIENT – there are many considerations and challenges to making sure the client gets the best possible service and outcomes. Amongst other things, the size and digital maturity of the client play a part and as such a bespoke approach needs to be taken each time.
Being able to see the whole life span of a project is important. The end to end view helps to mitigate risk as you can stop issues before they happen.
THE ROLE – It was agreed that recruitment is a challenge. With such a diverse skills set required identifying the right person in the role is not easy. Demystifying what DPM is would be a good task for this community to take on.
What is more important role skills vs tech skills was also discussed? Is blending PM/AM the answer to remove duplication of effort? However there needs to be clear division between delivery and strategy and this can be difficult to achieve in merged roles.
There was agreement at the end of the session that these sessions were of great value to the DPM community and BIMA needs to deliver more. With feedback such as “this is better than doing yoga” we are keen to do much more. Ideas and plans for next steps were mooted so watch out for further developments.
A huge thank you to Craig and ACCA Global for hosting the event, enabling us to get this brand new community up and running.
If you work in a DPM team or lead in digital operations and would like to find out more contact annadoyle@bima.co.uk
About Craig Buchanan
Craig has 22 years of experience under his belt delivering projects in a variety of environments and industries, ranging from Financial Services, Utilities to Broadcast and pretty much everything in between (and has the grey hairs to prove it). Having spent the last 9 years in ‘agency land’, he is now focused on Digital Transformation. Craig is driving change within ACCA, running a programme to enable them to become a leading digital business; embracing innovation and the digitising of services to deliver a truly compelling and engaging customer experience.
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