PM Network - December 2014

;rms,” Mr. Gould says. “;at resonates with younger
professionals especially.”
However, attracting foreign project leaders is
only half the talent battle, Mr. Leligdon says. Kusile,
like most major construction projects, requires
project leaders to hire a large number of local work-
ers. “We try to hire locally for these projects, but
that’s not always possible,” Mr. Gould says.

To overcome the gap, the organization holds skills training courses. It also provides extensive supervision on-site to quickly develop team members’ skill sets while reducing safety risks and minimizing mistakes. “It means our productivity levels may be lower than average,” Mr. Leligdon says. But because the project planners knew that would be a risk, they factored it into the schedule and risk assessment.

Even with proactive hiring and training programs, infrastructure project teams still face a constant challenge to attract and retain skilled labor, adds Ted Andry, Kusile’s project manager, Pretoria, South Africa. Positions sometimes go un;lled for extended periods, or the organization has to hire less-experienced team members to ;ll roles.

Power Up!

“I came to Shanghai as a project management director with the mandate to develop the current managers and develop local ones. Project planning methodology and risk analysis and reporting were not well-developed in Shanghai in 2006, and we had to develop a project management training program to ensure our managers had the right foundations.

In video game development, it’s not
surprising to see a project manager who
is 24 years old leading teams of 25 to 50
people. In big developments, it could eas-
ily be more than 400 people in different
studios around the world. Project manag-
ers need to have the right tools to succeed
in this kind of project organization. They
need to be able to manage their team locally and also to ensure the
right collaboration with studios abroad. It’s not always easy, and it’s a
challenge on every project.

Our training has been developed to cover areas a project manager has to tackle, including waterfall, Scrum, developing a budget, business writing and more.

In our training, we try to use real-life scenarios so practitioners can relate to what they are learning. We use situations like managing a big ego, conducting efficient meetings, developing successful teams and giving negative feedback to an employee. For example, when you need to give negative feedback, start and finish with positive feedback to help the employee better absorb the comments.

Video games are evolving really fast. Before, when the game was launched on the market, the project was almost done. Now, with online games, we have to ensure we provide new content after the launch of the game. Project managers have to follow closely how players are reacting to the game and work with operations and marketing teams to keep the game attractive to players. That’s why the business and marketing training is important for our managers.

Part of the communication training is about confidentiality. Our teams are really passionate about the games they are working on, but if the game is not announced worldwide yet, we’ve had to remind some teams not to mention it in their LinkedIn profile.”