Building a centre of excellence in the delivery of projects, programmes and portfolios

By Methods20 August 2019

Methods’ Projects and Programme Delivery Team is developing a centre of excellence to continuously improve our capabilities in line with the standards of the Association of Project Management, (APM).

What does a centre of excellence mean?

A centre of excellence in this context is a team of skilled knowledge workers with a shared mission to provide their organisation and clients with a professional service, deploying best practice delivery techniques and maintaining the highest standards. This ethos is very much part of our existing beliefs. The mission, therefore, was not how to build upon training, shared learning and continuous development and merge them into a professional framework recognised by the industry.

We felt that the best way to ensure this was to gain accreditation from the APM and become a professional partner. Methods’ successful completion of this process demonstrates our commitment to 3P management best practice, learning and development, continuous improvement, as well as integrity and professional conduct. It also assisted us in framing our core business within the five key pillars of the APM’s 5 dimensions of professionalism, namely:

1. Breadth

By reviewing our own delivery standards to the APM Body of Knowledge, the projects and programme team has been able to consistently define the knowledge needed to manage any kind of project.

2. Depth

By reviewing our consultants’ skills to the APM Competence Framework we were able to map our knowledge and experience against the key industry competences, identify our strengths and areas that needed development.

3. Achievement

By developing a consultant’s accreditation path we were able to ensure that across the team we have a range of key qualifications, 3P specialisms and key industry standard accreditation’s.

4. Commitment

We have developed a Continuing Professional Development process to develop our project management practices and ensure that we are constantly improving the skills inherent to our market offering.

5. Accountability

By adhering to the APM Code of Professional Conduct we are demonstrating our commitment to the Code and are accountable for our delivery.

What does all this mean to our clients?

Methods Projects and Programme team’s commitment to APM’s 5 dimensions of professionalism provides our clients with reassurance that our 3P managers are equipped with all the skills, training and qualifications required to deliver a professional service across the range of project, programme and portfolios. And continuously improve our market offering.

For more information please email Jon at jonathan.magee@methods.co.uk.