E102 Project Management Research, Key Findings with Louise Worsley

In this episode of Project Management Office Hours, PMO Joe chats with Louise Worsley. Louise is a consultant, lecturer and coach in the Project Management industry for over 30 years. She shared several stories and experiences with us including key points from years of research conducted for several organizations.

Louise leads the leadership module on the Masters in Project Management at the University of Cape Town and is the author of several books and publications on portfolio and project management, including Stakeholder-led Project Management: Changing the way we manage projects.

Louise and PMO Joe chatted about Leadership, with Louise sharing, “And for me, the currency of leadership is relationships. So I had to build those relationships in the University so that I could run this relatively complex program and build that coalition of support that we needed in order to do this major change program. And I think I personally had to change. I have to now focus not on doing things, but on creating those connections. And I think that for me was when I started to feel, gosh, this is what it means to be a manager. Here’s what it means to run projects.”

We also learned quite a bit about the research Louise has conducted over the years. What important findings can we learn from research? Is there a method or process that is more successful than another? She shared, “what we also found is that you could have one person using the same method and another person using the same method. One was incredibly successful, one was incredibly unsuccessful. So what was different about the people? What really mattered? So we went and measured their high performing project managers and looked at them. And I think one of the interesting first, the most important behavioral competence came out. And I’ve mentioned this before was integrity.”

Louise and PMO Joe continue their discussion about the various research findings and what to look for with successful project management.

Connect with Louise:
Company Website – www.pi3learning.com
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/picubed/

See the guest list for upcoming shows – https://www.thepmosquad.com/podcast

Thank you to THE PMO SQUAD and The PMO Leader for sponsoring this show.

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The University of Cape Town is the leading academic institution in Africa. Its Masters in Project Management is run by the Department of Construction and Management.

It attracts students from across all industries and from many of the southern African countries.

At PiCubed we are passionate about project management and about sharing our knowledge and experience with everybody in the “business change” community.

Louise Worsley has been a project management consultant, lecturer, and coach for over thirty years and has worked with clients in a variety of sectors (Government, Finance, Retail, Petrochemical, Defence, Transport) supporting the development of project mnager capability, and advising on the setup of project and portfolio management processes.

Currently, she combines consultancy in project, portfolio and programme management with a visiting lecturer role at the University of Cape Town.

She leads the leadership module on the Masters in Project Management at the University of Cape Town and is the author of several books and publications on portfolio and project management, including Stakeholder-led Project Management: Changing the way we manage projects.

She has been three years as a judge for the global Project Office (PMO) Awards and was, until recently, the chair of the PMO judging committee in South Africa.

Louise has presented across the world at PMI and IAPM conferences and is part of a global mentoring group offering coaching and mentoring services. I am passionate about the development and support of young people in the project profession and completed her Masters Degree in Online and Distance Learning through the Open University in the UK.

Follow PiCubed on LinkedIn.

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Project Management Office Hours is intended to provide Project Management professionals a place to drop in and discuss Success Stories, Best Practices, and Lessons Learned. Project Management Consultant Joy Gumz has shared with us, “Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.”

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Joe Pusz started THE PMO SQUAD to bring real world PMO Leadership experience to the consulting space and to advocate for Project Management through his blog PMOJOE.com. The old saying is “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Following this mindset Joe left Corporate America in 2013 to start THE PMO SQUAD and work with fellow Natural Born Project Managers to advance Project Management Best Practices.

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