This article forms part of a series of articles that analyses the results of our recent “State of Project Management 2010” survey carried out earlier this year by The Project Manager in conjunction with Human Systems International Ltd.

In terms of interesting findings, the survey revealed that:

• Sixty-one percent of respondents fall within the age bracket of 41-60 years. This statistic depicts current concerns relating to the ageing of the project management profession.
• The seniority of the respondents was re-emphasised by the fact that 80% reported they had over five years’ experience and 40% over 10 years. This is again alluded to by noting that 42% of project managers are responsible for between two and five projects at one point in time.
• Thirty percent of respondents fall within a salary band of R300 000 and R500 000 per annum. Secondly, almost 40% of respondents earn a salary in the band of R600 000–R900 000 per annum. The survey was therefore completed by a relevantly senior group of respondents.
• Forty-four percent of respondents are not members of the company employee pension scheme, while 47% of respondents reported that remuneration does not include non-salary perks.
• Respondents are working hard – 58% of respondents reported working in excess of 40 hours a week, 35% said they work 35 to 40 hours, and only 7% reported that they work less than 35 hours.
• In terms of accreditation, 26% of respondents reported that more than 50% of project and programme managers employed by the organisation are externally accredited. At the same time, 30% of respondents reported that only between 1% and 5% of project managers are externally accredited. This illustrates a large diversification in the value of external accreditation. Should the route of external accreditation be pursued, the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Professional came out on top (40%), followed by a tertiary project management course (15%) and then PMI’s Program Management Professional (8%).
• A couple of questions were posed relating to the deployment of project management computer software in their project environment: Do respondents have access to project management software, and what product? Seventy-six percent have access to dedicated project management software, and that is invariably Microsoft Project (90%).
• We know that 38% of respondents are in organisations that depend on project work for 75% of their revenue.
• Gender mix – 20% of respondents are female. A series of surveys, similar to this one, has been run in Europe over the past two decades. A noted trend in the European surveys showed an increase in the proportion of women taking part. In 1991, 9% of the participants were women, whereas in 2008, this figure rose to 26% – pointing to an increase in the role of women
  in projects.
• We know that 64% of respondents have no experience of maturity models.
• Most of the respondents (72%) engaged in customer type projects where the responding organisation takes the lead, and 40% of respondents outsourced between 0% and 10% of the project budget.
• Training – Between one and 25 full-time project managers are employed by responding organisations. Thirty-eight percent of these organisations provide the project practitioner population with between one and five days of training, while 25% of organisations offer between five and 10 days. More than half of those respondents received training via short courses.

Our next article will report on other trends, including whether and how much an investment in project management qualifications, certification and training contributes to individual and organisational project success.

This series of articles is written by Bruce Rodrigues, director of Human Systems International Ltd, and well known for the depth of his insight and analysis on project and programme management issues.

The articles explore the factors such as the effect of demographics on project performance, the impact of project size and complexity on performance, and the importance of standards and accreditation.

Rodrigues says, “In-depth research into the practices, processes and human factors that affect the nature of modern, professional, project and programme management lies at the heart of everything that Human Systems does.

“Where there is robust, global research to provide real evidence of value, then organisations are more able to invest in change.

“It is said that there are no real certainties in this world, but once you start to pool knowledge and analyse practice across groups, then you will be surprised how certain you can be,” he adds.

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