Ensuring the success of projects is not something Siemens leaves to chance.
With almost half of its global revenues coming from projects, ensuring Siemens has knowledgeable, capable and competent project managers is crucial for their ongoing business success. The dependency on project business is even starker in the UK, where almost two thirds of Siemens revenues are project related and where the projects are becoming ever more challenging, complex and demanding.
By sharing APM’s drive for project professionalism Siemens has overhauled its UK Project Management Academy for 2012 by linking to APM’s entire suite of qualifications along with the Association’s pan-sector standard.
By embedding an internationally recognised APM qualification at every level of their project management academy, with APM Registered Project Professional (RPP) coming in above them, Siemens ensures it caters for all levels of training requirement. From someone simply wanting to understand project management fundamentals, all the way to a project manager working on a multi billion pound project, Siemens has linked APM qualifications to each of its levels of training, each underpinning the APM Five Dimensions of Professionalism.
Employees attending fundamentals training will also undertake APM’s Introductory Certificate qualification as part of it. Likewise at level 4, participants who may be commencing their PM career will undertake the <a href="http://www.apm.org.uk/APM PMQ” target=”_self”>APM PMQ qualification and those who are more experienced at level 3 will undertake APM’s Practitioner Qualification. Level 2 will typically be made up of senior project managers being supported through an RPP workshop, which will lead to them achieving the designation of APM Registered Project Professional. Siemens’ Learning Campus Germany undertakes training at level 1 which is targeted at project directors.
Siemens already had a clearly defined approach to project business and project management known as PM@Siemens. Project managers are evaluated for their capability against a global career model, but this alone is not enough. That is why great emphasis has been placed on personal development and the Siemens UK Project Management Academy to develop the organisation’s project management capability and competence through APM’s qualifications, which incorporate a mix of tools, techniques, processes and skills.
Paul Hodgkins, who is charged with leading the PM@Siemens programme across UK and North West Europe, said: “The big advantage is that as well as our project managers learning what we need them to know from a PM@Siemens perspective, they will also learn from the APM Body of Knowledge and undertake professionally recognised APM qualifications, all under one roof”.
Roland Aurich, CEO for Siemens in the UK and North West Europe reinforced the importance of project management to his business and of ensuring capable project managers: “The continued success of our company is increasingly dependent on efficient and successful execution of larger and more complex projects. Ensuring our project managers have the right training, development, capabilities and knowledge is not only necessary, it is a vital success factor for Siemens”.
“Experience is a great teacher, but by itself it is not enough,” added Paul. “We need to ensure our project managers have the right blend of experience, competence, training and professionally recognised project management qualifications to demonstrate to them and our customers; we are not simply marking our own homework and are serious about the professional job they perform”.
With challenging and complex projects such as the £32 million contract awarded by BAA for Heathrow Terminal 2A, which will be the single largest baggage handling project in the UK, Siemens will not be leaving anything to chance.