How to Cure Your Project Management Talent Shortage!

Because the numbers describing the severe global project management talent shortage are so large, fantastical, and often-times biased, many organizations, executives, and HR professionals don’t believe them!

However, we know this condition exists and is widespread because myriad organizations of all sizes are experiencing one or more of the five insidious symptoms of it; the severe global project management talent shortage.

The first symptom of this project manager shortage occurs because, out of necessity, many organizations cannibalize their internal positions by converting their best X professionals into their next generation of project managers when they deliver results on projects in their functional areas. This solves their PM shortage problem, but creates another one in the departments or functions from which the newly minted PM came from!

The second symptom rears its ugly head because since our internal population of functional experts is limited, we soon run out of those to convert, which leads us to poach PM talent from shops across town to fill our ranks, which can create viscous, expensive local cycles of churn and reduced loyalty, effectiveness, in-fighting, and project delivery, which means decreased revenue!

The third symptom arises from some degree of combination from the first and second, since we have a shortage of PMs, we overwork those PMs that we do have with more than two or three projects, which creates burn-out, sub-standard results due to loss of focus and attention, and inconsistent project delivery. Which again, means reduced revenue!

The fourth symptom, an exacerbation of the third one, is that sub-standard results and inconsistent project delivery creates dissatisfied or lost customers, which reduces demand further, which reduces revenue further. At some point, if this down-ward spiral is not halted, organizational longevity comes into serious question.

Finally, speaking of revenue, it's vital contribution to organizational longevity, and symptoms of the severe global project management talent shortage, the fifth symptom is reduced profitability! Increasing talent management costs such as hiring, training, and replacing, coupled with decreasing revenue from less project sales, i.e. successful deliveries, reduces the bottom line on an organization's Profit & Loss (P&L) Statement, i.e. it's profitability. Organizations that consistently spend more then they make don't stay in business (for profits) or service (non-profits).

So what can organizations suffering from this condition do about it?

They can tap into a proven, extant yet obscure PM talent pool; our military Veterans!

That's because all military missions (doing) and exercises (training for the doing) share the same definition as projects in the CIVDIV: temporary endeavors undertaken to produce unique goods, services, or results.

This means that all military Veterans ever responsible for receiving, planning, resourcing, leading, controlling, and briefing out mission or exercise success have legitimate project management experience! Additionally, since many of these military leaders have years of doing missions and exercises all over the world, they vast amounts of legitimate project management experience!

Therefore, those military Veterans that have codified and can convey their PM experience, skills, and talent are project ready day one! It's a sizable talent pool too! According to a 2017 Department of Defense (DoD) report on its forces structure, of the approximately 2 million active duty and reserve and guard personnel, 577K of them were ranks E7 or above, i.e. formal military leaders. This is 29%. Multiply that times the average 250K personnel leaving the services each year, and you have 72.5K new PM capable personnel to consider for hiring each year! This is in addition to the 16M Veterans already in the workforce, 29% of which are PM capable: .29 X 16M = 4.6M!

Vets2PM is the dispensary for all of your severe global project management talent shortage get well tonics; our solutions will actually help you not only get better in terms of project performance, but turn this shortage into a competitive advantage over your peers for you and your organization! Organizations that work with us ease their pain in any one or all of the four areas they’re ill in:

1. Experienced, credentialed PMs for permanent staff augmentation;
2. Experienced, credentialed PMs for temporary staff augmentation;
3. Experienced, credentialed PMs to run their projects on a contract basis, i.e. provide you with Project Management as a Service (PMaaS);
4. Building a purpose-driven PMO that can provide enterprise-wide, long-term coordinated solutions comprised of different mixes of the above.

As you can see, if you’re staffed, effective, and profitable, and your competitors aren’t, you win!

Please visit www.vets2pm.com or contact Cathy Miclat at [email protected] today to get your get well prescription today!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Eric “Doc” Wright, PhD, is a decorated military Veteran, Founder of Vets2PM LLC, Vet Stone LLC, and Co-Founder of the non-profit Veteran Project Manager Mentor Alliance. He is also an experienced, credentialed project manager and PMI Chapter-recognized mentor, and an energetic, entertaining speaker on 1. project management workforce development, 2. project manager development, 3. entrepreneurship and growing revenue with LinkedIn, and 4. the military transition. Because his transition from the defense-to-civilian workforce was so arduous & lengthy, his life’s work now is helping transitioning military Service Members, Veterans, Spouses and Small Business Owners achieve meaningful, lucrative careers! You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn with the handle “docwright2012”, or at www.vets2pm.com.