What skills do project professionals need in 2025?

Welcome to the APM Podcast. APM is the charter body for the project profession. My name is Emma DeVita and I'm the editor of Project APM's courseery journal and your host. In this podcast we're giving you the cheat sky to the eighth edition of APM's Body of Knowledge courtesy of its managing editor Mike Bourne, professor of business performance at Crownfield University, where he leads the project leadership program for senior civil servants. He's also director for the Centre for Business Performance there. Mike tells me a lot has changed in the past five years since the previous edition of the APM Body of Knowledge was published and we focus our conversation on what makes for a great project professional in 2025. How to get your head around systems thinking, how to approach AI and what sustainability really means for projects. If there's one takeaway from our discussion, it's about learning to have the bigger picture on your projects and programmes. Listen on for Mike's invaluable advice. Welcome Mike, thanks so much for finding the time to speak to us, really looking forward to our conversation. So what we would like to share with listeners is almost like a cheat sky to the eighth edition of the Body of Knowledge. It's been five years since the previous edition so I know from the feature in the spring 2025 issue project that there were certain areas that would have particular interest for this edition, massive topics like AI, systems thinking, project leadership. So for someone who doesn't have the time to read the eighth edition in full right now, what would you say are the main new points that they should really be paying attention to? I wouldn't read the eighth edition cover to cover unless you're providing an example or something like that. It's really a reference guide. It's something to be dug into when you've got a particular issue or problem or you need to think about something in a bit of depth. So what's new about this, we're really living in a vaca world. It's volatile, it's uncertain, it's complex, and it's ambiguous. And that makes project life more difficult than it ever used to be. Projects typically in the past used to be quite linear. You decide what to do, you decide how to do it, you do it and wrap it all up. But currently, and especially with complex projects, it's becoming much more non-linear. We've got turbulence in the world, we've got people interfering with the project, we've got advancing technologies, and so the project professionals got to live in that space and that's what it's about. So as you said, yes, the new version does focus in on leadership, in particular, it's got sections on systems thinking, it's got sections on sustainability, which are really important too. And we have a whole chapter on AI that we added right at the end of this to keep everybody interested. And really to reflect the growing importance of AI as we go forwards. Thanks Mike, that's brilliant. Are there a couple of topics that perhaps we could just dive into a bit now that you think are really the ones that project professionals need advice on or need to be thinking about? I mean, I'm particularly interested in project leadership because to deal with such a vaca environment, it's about the judgement that project leaders have, the ability to make decisions, and everything else kind of feeds into that sustainability AI system thinking, crikey, that's a lot for project leaders to get there. It's around. Tell me what your views are on this. Yes, project leadership, because it's vital, it's extremely important. It's much less now about process. Process is really important to run efficient projects and you've got to know where you are and what you're doing, etc, etc, etc. But the role of the project leader is to focus on the outcomes and benefits the project is there to deliver and to also understand the stakeholder environment and those two things come together. Stakeholders do move, unfortunately. They have an initial understanding of what they want at the beginning, but invariably projects take a little time to deliver and so stakeholders evolve as the project evolves and it's really important for the person leading the project to understand this and hold it all together. And then you've got the situation of if it's about change, if it's about it, emergence, it's about, it's really it is as you said about judgment. It's about understanding what is and isn't working. It's about understanding when you need to revisit the schedule or even when to revisit the whole purpose of the project because something's happened that's blown it out of the water. And leadership too is about leading the team. You've got to have a vision and for me, the vision is the kind of the North Star, what you're trying to deliver, the real outcome, the real benefits and that's the thing that guides the project, not the delivery of the project itself. And keeping the team focused on the ultimate outcome is critical. And doing that, the leader also has the chance to develop those working on the project involved in the project so that they learn from their experience and their time on the project and therefore can be better project professionals, better project managers or better project leaders into the future. I mean, this still sounds wonderful, but I imagine it's kind of easier said than done. Any advice to project leaders about how you reach this kind of whole world of what successful leaders, what does they do right? For me, a project leader isn't the project manager. And you've got to remember that all those project management roles have still got to be done, but the project leaders job is to lead the project and to delegate the project management role. So the real takeaway for a project leader is to create the space to lead and not get bogged down into the detail of the project delivery. And that's difficult because you've still got to have a feeling for the project you've got to have a gut feel about how it's going, what's going right and what's not. But that space to interact with stakeholders, to interact with people in the project, to think about the project and just reflect on what's going on is critical. And delegating stuff to make that space is how you do it. The art of delegation, which can be hard, can't it for people to let go and know that the skills that got you so far aren't the skills that you need to take you further. Yeah, the worst project leader is probably the best project manager because they're still reassuring the skills that they had before. You do have to let go. And that's why I talked about developing people during the project because you've got to bring them up to be able to fulfill some of the roles that you're letting go with. And you've got to trust them. You've got to understand that they're closer to what he's going on on the ground and therefore they're making decisions based on their local knowledge. As a leader, your job is to give them the context in which to make those decisions. But you've got to let them make those decisions and sometimes makes mistakes as well. But invariably, those mistakes are no worse than the mistakes you'd make from a top of an ivory tower looking down and pretending you know what's going on. Thanks, Mike. Were there any other topics? I know we briefly mentioned systems thinking, sustainability in AI, but I mean they're huge. Was there any of those that you'd like to discuss a bit further? Let me just talk briefly about systems thinking because it's about whole systems thinking and it kind of goes with the leadership too. It's about understanding if we do this project in this way, what are the consequences outside the project? What are the, you know, we've got things we're trying to deliver, but what are the unintended things that are going to happen if we deliver it this way? And so it's really important to think about the project and the project delivery and the wider system so that you can see what he's going on and what impacts you're having around the whole of the system, not just in the project. To ask an obvious question, but why do you need to do that? Why is it beneficial to think about the bigger picture? So does that directly link to benefits and outcomes of the project or program? It directly links to benefits and outcomes, actually, because at the end of the day you can deliver a project that doesn't deliver the benefits and outcomes. So if you're delivering a project part of the role of the leader is to understand how the project outputs, deliver the outcomes and the benefits that the wider organization or the client requires. And that's what it's about. So having a whole systems view, understanding where the stakeholders are coming from, whether they're for you or against you, whether they're trying to help you, whether they're trying to hinder you in that project delivery. That's really important. And then just understanding how the will moves to and also some of the consequences that happened as your projects get to deliver it. and get passed over into operations. My next question is what are the skills or knowledge that you need as a project professional to really thrive in 2025? So any advice on that, including getting your head around this, like this idea of much bigger picture thinking? So what do project professionals need to thrive in 2025? That's a good question. Yeah, I think you've got to understand the bigger picture. I think that's really important and systems thinking will help you do that. But there are two other things I think that are really there. One is about people. You've got to understand people. People are really important. Those relationships with stakeholders, those relationships with other projects, professionals within your team and without it, and also your relationships with the people you're delivering the project to so that they take it on board, implement, and take the benefits. So there's a great people side of it, and then the other interesting thing is this business of AI, which is artificial intelligence, the use of data that's coming into projects in a big way, and that too is really important. So we're starting to see some kind of two quite conflicting views of the world coming through projects. It's about people, but it's about the technical side of using AI and data as well, and I think if a project professional can master both of those, they're in a really good place. Have you got any advice around the use of AI or experimenting with AI or how to approach it? Because there's a fear that there's this kind of panic around it and that you just need to be doing something or be seen to be doing something, but what's the smart way to be thinking about this and experimenting with it? So AI is a bit of a panacea or people think of it as that, and it is and it isn't. I think what we're going to get is some of the technical things that happen in projects. Scheduling AI over time is going to help us do better schedules and more complete schedules and things like that. Starting AI over time is going to start to pull the data together and recognize patterns and start to report better and better. And as it goes on, it's then going to start to prescribe things that we should do. But from my perspective, the decision really needs to stay with the human being. Is this prescription right? Is this what we really should be doing? As AI come to this conclusion based on data that we're happy with, or are we being taken down a different route? So the data sources for AI are really important. And as you go on, it's also about you, you know, artificial intelligence. It's starting to learn and then you start to lose the transparency of where it's coming from. And so you've always got to keep an AI over what it's prescribing, what it's thinking about, what's coming out, and are you comfortable with that? What's the governance there? And that's quite tricky. When you see it in practice within other organisations or companies, are there any behaviours or processes or practices that they do that means that they get the best from AI that they've really taken the right approach? So one really good example at the back end of last year was within one of the big banks. And they had multiple AI projects going on. They started off with the idea that they were going to experiment with AI because it was going to be something that's going to be there in the future. And they weren't going to justify each project. They were going to have a go, they were going to see what happened and see what worked, but also see what didn't work. So what they were doing basically was failing fast to use a project expression. They were kicking off projects. If they were looked to be successful, they carry on. If they didn't, they stopped, they learnt and they moved on again. And it was this continuous reupdating the portfolio that kept it going. They also didn't try to optimise everything right at the beginning. They were really learning and trying to feel their way with AI and trying to encourage people to use it and then reflect on the use. And I thought that was good because it engaged people in thinking about AI and using AI, but it also kept people in control of it as it went along. Okay, thank you. I immediately am thinking about the culture of a project team to have that, I guess that where everyone used that kind of psychological safety or that ability to fail, be allowed to fail and to have that trust and transparency when it comes to project managing teams. Have you got any advice around the most successful types of culture and how are you, in fact, to create that? Project culture is a really big topic, isn't it? No, I thought I'd ask you, well, this is podcast for the children. Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. They have two or three podcasts there. But project culture, what's you've got within a project? It's a temporary organisation. It's almost the definition of what a project is. So it's a great opportunity for the project leader to actually decide the culture that he wants and then do that up most to build it. And for me, the psychological safety around being able to voice concerns, being able to challenge is absolutely critical to running successful projects. It's no good running a project and then finding that you're failing because somebody hasn't shipped him and said this doesn't work and he's not going to work and he's never going to work. And there's a leader you can't know everything in your project. So you're reliant on your team to keep you honest to tell you what they're thinking. If you don't let them do that, you're in real trouble. So for me, that openness, that willingness to admit that something's not working is critical. So you've got to have that psychological safety, but the leader has to have the resilience to be able to cope with being challenged because that's the critical bit as a leader. You can't get everything right. So why expect everybody working for you to get everything right to? And if you've got that kind of attitude, that builds the kind of culture that I think you need to run a successful project. Some excellent words, Mike. Thank you. There was one thing that I particularly want to talk about as well as around sustainability back in the news, again, with kind of global developments on this side shifting thinking on it. How are we at? Could we be doing more and what really is the role of the project manager or project professional when it comes to looking after the sustainability side of things of a project? Yeah, well, there's one way of looking at the project professional delivers the future. And so everything they're doing is delivering what he's going to come next. So they've got a mammoth role in delivering sustainability. They should be challenging to start off with whether what they're going to deliver is going to be needed in the future because if they haven't got a sustainable solution, then the project is going to deliver a white elephant. This is no real, real future. So that's the first thing. But secondly, during the project, every stage of the project, they've got a chance to think about, if we put a sustainability hat on, can we reduce the carbon impact? Can we make sure that we're using resources effectively and efficiently? Can we manage the supply chain in a way so that they do develop and deliver what we're really looking for? So project management probably has got a big percentage of sustainability for the future. Thank you, Mike. And talking of the future might be another five years. I don't know. You probably don't want to even think about the ninth edition of the body of knowledge. What is a bit, another big question, but I'm asking you all the big questions in this podcast. But what's the future direction of travel for project professionals? What do you think might be coming up ahead over the next five years? And how can listeners prepare for that? What should they be thinking about right now? I think we've talked about volatile environment. That's going to be more so. I don't think the future is going to come up. futures are very certain. You know, there are some global things going on that are affecting all of us and the delivery of projects. Projects are getting much more international with development all over the world, but it's against a background of global uncertainty, I think. I think the project professionals got a growing use of data and AI within the projects, so they've got to manage their skills to stay relevant. I think that's what it's really about. And so for the project professional, it's about keeping across the developments that are happening, being comfortable with using the tools. AI is not going to replace the project manager or the project leader, but it is going to make their jobs, their roles very different. And I think a project professional in the future is going to have to be much more comfortable dealing with that and then dealing with their team and helping their team to use some of these news tools and techniques and deal with the uncertainty and everything else that the world's going to throw at us. So, tall order isn't it? I mean, the words everyone uses is mindset. If you could sum up the best mindset to be able to be successful in the future as a project professional, how might you describe that? They need a bit of a global view. They do need a global view and just be aware of everything is going on. I think they need to have a mindset that the project is a small part of a much bigger system and what they're delivering is going to impact that system, but the bigger system will continue and the projects can be better or worse to hurt actually influencing the direction of that system by the way it's delivered and where the way it's run. So, I think that's that's part of a mindset. Project professionals or project leaders have really got to be more big picture. And project professionals have got to understand some of the intricacies of it, but not get totally swamped with the detail. I think that's kind of a mindset you need to have. And judgment, you know, judgment is critical. It's got feel. Is that something that is just within you or something that can be worked on and cultivated? I think judgment is partly within you, but you can greatly improve your use of judgment. And part of it is being honest with yourself. If you've made a decision and you've got it wrong, first of all, you've got to recognize you've got it wrong and then secondly think about what happened and why you might have been blindsided or whatever and did get it wrong. And what could you do differently? So, for me, judgment is about making decisions, recognizing whether they're good decisions or not, but also learning from reflecting on those decisions and then creating better experience for yourself. So, you know, I interviewed project leaders a while back and I found a very young female project leader who got immense amount of experience at the age of 26. And she'd done it because she thought about what she'd done and what had worked and what had happened and what she'd learnt from it. And that reflection piece, I think, is the best way for a project leader to learn and develop their judgment and all their other skills. Really interesting. Thank you. I should really be wrapping things up. So, my final question would be what would be the key takeaways of well, things to think about that you've kind of come across in your work with the eighth edition. What are the things that listeners should perhaps start thinking about? I think we think of the body of knowledge as it Bible in some sense. It's got all the terms, the techniques and everything. And I think it's useful for people to understand that they're there, but also understand where they are and aren't appropriate to their use and then be open to understanding and learning all the time. If you've become a charted project professional and past the exam, that's the beginning of your career, not the end of it. You need to keep learning, you need to keep developing your skills. And when the ninth edition comes along, it won't be a surprise if there's something new in that as well that you need to keep up to date with. But if you've kept up to date, you probably know about it already. And it'll just be a reminder of a set of terms and conditions that you should keep at the back of your head. Thanks Mike. That's absolutely brilliant. I want to think about in the stuff that we've been covering. I guess you're kind of glad to see this publish now. Yeah, I'm really pleased to see it published. We've had some great writers in here. We've had some interesting arguments. It won't please everybody. But we've had to make a decision about what we're putting in and what we're leaving out and the way we're going. So it's there. It's useful. There's a system's terms that all models are long, wrong. But some models are useful. And I think this is a useful publication. Mike, brilliant way, perfect way to end a podcast. So it just leaves me to say thanks very much for your time and to recommend listeners to go and get a copy of the eight edition of the Body of Knowledge as soon as possible. But thanks again Mike for your time. Thank you.