Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the childhood body for
the project profession. My name is Emma Devita, and I'm
the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host.
In this podcast, we're giving you the cheats guide to the 8th
edition of APM's Body of Knowledge, courtesy of its
Managing editor, Mike Bourne, Professor of Business
Performance at Cranfield University, where he leads the
project Leadership programme 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 forward to our conversation.
So what we would like to share with listeners is, is almost
like a cheats guide to the 8th 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 of Project that there were certain areas
that were of 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 8th 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 8th edition from cover to cover unless
you're reviving Exam 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
vodka environment, it's about the judgement that project
leaders have the ability to make decisions and everything else
kind of feeds into that. You know, sustainability, AI
systems thinking, crikey, that's a lot for a project leader to
get their heads around. Tell me, tell me what?
Yeah, tell me what what your views are on this.
Yes, project leadership, because it's volatile, is 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
on what you're doing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
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 emergence, it's about, it's really is, as
you said, about judgement. It's about understanding what
isn't isn't working. It's about understanding when
you need to revisit the the schedule or even when to reach
visit 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 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 all 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
Holy Grail of what, what what, what successful leaders?
What do 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 leader's job is to lead the project and to
delegate the project management role.
So the real takeaway for 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,
he's probably the best project manager because they, they're,
they're still reassuring the the skills that they had before.
You do have to let go. And, and that's why I talked
about developing people during the project, because you've got
to bring them up to, to be able to fulfil 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 is 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. OK.
Thanks. Mike.
Were there any other topics? I know we briefly mentioned
systems thinking, sustainability and AI, but I mean they're
they're huge. Was there any 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, 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 in the wider
system so that you can see what is going on and what impacts
you're having around the whole of the system, not just 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 programme?
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 to the wider organisation or the
clients 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 that's really important. And then just understanding how
the world moves too. And and also, you know some of
the consequences that that happened as your projects get to
delivery and get passed over into operations.
My next question was what are the skills or knowledge that you
need as a project professional to to really thrive in 2025 S?
Any advice on that, including getting getting your head around
this 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. 1 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 you're delivering the project to so
that they take it on board, implements 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, 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 of using AI and data as well.
And, 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 a slight kind of panic around it and that you just need
to be doing something. You'll be seen to be doing
something. But what's the smart way to be
thinking about this and and and and experimenting with it?
So AI is that, you know, is a, is a bit of a panacea at present
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, You know, scheduling AI over time is
going to help us do better schedules and more complete
schedules and things like that. Reporting AI over time is going
to start to pull the data together and recognise 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, with the, the human
being, you know, is this prescription right?
Is this what we really should be doing?
Has AI come to this conclusion based on, 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, it's starting to learn and
then you start to lose the transparency of where it's,
it's, it's coming from. And so you've always got to keep
an eye over what it's prescribing, what it's thinking
about, what's what's coming out and are you comfortable with
that? What's the governance there?
And that's quite tricky. When you when you see it in
practise within other organisations or companies, are
there any behaviours or processes or practises that they
that they do that means that they get the best from AI that
they that, that they've really taken the right approach?
So one really good example I saw at the back end of last year was
when one of the big banks and they had multiple AI projects
going on. And 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 projects.
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, you know, project expression.
They were kicking off projects. If they were looked to be
successful, they'd carry on. If they didn't, they stopped.
They learnt and they moved on again.
And it was this, this continuous re updating 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 on
the use. And I thought that was good
because it engaged people in thinking about AI and using AI,
but also kept people in control of it as it went along.
OK, thank you. I I immediately am thinking
about the culture of a project team to have that, I guess that
word everyone uses, 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 and managing
teams. Have you got any advice around
the most successful types of culture and how you in fact
create that? Project Culture a really big
topic. Isn't it?
I thought I'd ask you a trick. Well, this, this podcast for
the. Well, fair enough.
Fair enough if 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 they
want and then do their utmost 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
chipped in and said this doesn't work and it's not going to work
and it's never going to work. And as 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.
And if you don't let them do that, you're, you're in real
trouble. So for me, that openness, that
willingness to admit that something's not working is, 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 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 too? 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 there,
Mike. Thank you.
There is one thing that I particularly want to talk about
as well is around sustainability back in the news again with kind
of global developments on this side shifting thinking on it,
where are we at? Could we be doing more and and
what really is the role of the project manager, 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, the, the project professional delivers the
future. And so everything they're doing
is delivering what's is going to come next.
So they've got a mammoth role in, in, 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, if, if they haven't got a sustainable solution, then
the project's 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, you know, if we put
a sustainability hat on, you know, 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, you know, a big
percentage of, of, 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 9th edition of
the body of knowledge. But what it's a bit another big
question, but I'm asking you all the big questions in this
podcast. But what, what's the future
direction of travel for project professionals?
What, what do you think might be coming up ahead over the next
five years? And, and how can listeners
prepare for that? What should they be thinking
about right now? I think we've talked about, you
know, volatile environment that's going to be more.
So I don't think the future is very certain.
You know, there's some global things going on.
That are affecting all of us and the delivery of projects.
Projects are getting much more international with developments
all over the world. But it's against a a background
of global uncertainty I think. I think the project
professionals got a growing use of, 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, it's about keeping across the developments
that are happening, being comfortable with using the
tools. And I think it's the AI is not
going to replace the the project manager or the project leader,
but it is going to make their jobs, their roles very
different. And I think a project profession
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, but how might you describe that?
They they, 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 and what they're delivering is going to impact
that system. But the bigger system will
continue and the projects can be better or worser to hurt
actually influencing the direction of that system by the
way it's delivered and by 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, the detail.
I think that's, that's kind of a mindset you need to have and
judgement, you know, judgement is critical.
It's it's gut feel. Is that something that is just
within you, or something that can be worked on and cultivated?
I think judgement is partly within you, but you can greatly
improve your use of judgement 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 recognise
you've got it wrong. And then secondly, think about
what happened and why you might have been blindsided or whatever
and, and did get it wrong and what could you do differently.
So for me, judgement is about making decisions, recognising
whether they're good decisions or not, but also learning from
reflecting on those decisions and, and then creating better
experience for yourself. So I, you know, I interviewed
project leaders a while back and I found a very young female
project leader who got an 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 is the best way for a
project leader to to learn and develop their judgement 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 8th
edition? What?
What are the things that listeners should perhaps start
thinking about? I think we think of the body of
knowledge as a Bible in some sense.
It's got all the terms, the the 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 in their use. And then be open to
understanding and learning all the time.
If you become a chartered project professional and pass
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 9th 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 you you
should keep at the back of your head.
Thanks, Mike. That's, that's absolutely
brilliant. So much to think about in the
stuff that we've been covering. I guess you're kind of glad to
to see this published now. Yeah, I'm really pleased to see
it published. You know, we've had some great
writers in here. We've had some interesting
arguments. It won't please everybody, but
we've had to, you know, 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. Like 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 to get a copy of the 8th edition of The Body of Knowledge
as soon as possible. But thanks again, Mike, for your
time. Thank you.