It’s time for the Chief Project Officer to step forward

Andy Murray, Chair of APM’s Governance SIG, on why this seat at the top table must be filled.

Regardless of whether an organisation is in the private sector, public sector or a charity, its respective governance code will be consistent on the duties of the board: to provide stewardship and direction by setting purpose, values and strategy and then delegating to management to deliver the strategy and holding them to account for delivery. This requires the board to be future‑thinking about what the organisation’s environment could look like in three, five or perhaps 10 years’ time and what the organisation will need to look like to advance its aims and fulfil its purpose in the context of its changing environment.

A good strategy is likely to describe a different environment and organisation than exists today, hence will determine the changes required of the organisation. Therefore to “hold management to account”, the board needs to understand not just the organisation’s operational capability and performance but also its change capability and performance so it can ensure management has sufficient resources for them.

And here is where we have a problem. Boards are easily and too often drawn to performance measures over capability measures and to the operational activities over change activities. The tendency to focus on the here and now rather than the future was the central theme of an excellent joint conference of several APM specific interest groups held recently, which explored why our dashboards, reports and plans have a bias to the past and present rather than the future. Among the many reasons, two stood out for me. 

The first is that people generally like certainty over uncertainty and definiteness over ambiguity and the past and present is much more certain and definite than the future. The second is that behaviour is driven top-down. The C-suite mimics the behaviours of the board, senior leaders mimic the behaviours of the C-suite, middle management mimic senior leadership, and so on. Many boards and C-suites will have a majority of members who have risen to the top through their operational or functional expertise, such as finance, HR, legal. Unfortunately this can lead to a scarcity of change expertise and behaviours in the very place that it is most needed.

What can be done to help the boards fulfil the duty their governance codes expect regarding future thinking? Step forward the role of the Chief Project Officer (CPO). There is an emerging and welcome trend of C-suites having a CPO with a seat at the top executive table reporting to and advising the board on the capability and performance of the organisation’s project portfolio – the aggregation of the changes required to deliver the strategy. It is perhaps long overdue when we consider the projectisation of organisations. Since the Management of Portfolios framework (2011) described management activities as either “run the organisation” or “change the organisation”, we have seen an increasing shift towards change. Business as usual isn’t as usual as it used to be! This phenomena and the increasing value of appointing CPOs is explored in detail in an HBR report from April 2022, The Rise of the Chief Project Officer, by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez.

While the rise of the CPO is a welcome trend, it is not a panacea. The board is failing in its duty if it believes that appointing a CPO is ‘job done’. The other executives and board members also need to understand their organisation’s project management capability and performance, otherwise the CPO could be drowned out. Perhaps the initial focus of the CPO should be on the capability of their peers rather than the projects within the organisation.

Andy Murray is Executive Director at the Major Projects Association.

Read and download APM’s white paper The Chief Project Officer: An essential part of the future C-suite here.

THIS ARTICLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU FROM THE WINTER 2022 ISSUE OF PROJECT JOURNAL, WHICH IS FREE FOR APM MEMBERS.