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Transformation of the International
Project Management Association
project managers individual
competencies model
2019 IEEE International Conference on
Advanced Trends in Information Theory
Track 5
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CONTEXT
Project Management and IPMA:
IPMA is the world’s first project management
association, founded in 1965. Our Member Associations
cooperate to help project and programme managers
achieve project and business success. Originally started
as an international network to exchange project
management experiences, the organisation developed
into global organisation in the 1970s, organising
courses and events. In 1996 the organisation was
renamed as IPMA, International Project Management
Association, and started it certification activities.
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https://www.ipma.world/about-us/ipma-international/
4
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https://www.ipma.world/individuals/
standard/
https://www.pmi.org/learning/
training-development/talent-triangle
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
331277432_Project_Management_Competences_by_Teachin
g_and_Research_Staff_for_the_Sustained_Success_of_Engi
neering_Education/figures?lo=1
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I. INTRODUCTION
Today (2019), we can confidently say that the existing system
for standardizing activities in the field of project management is
experiencing a crisis associated with an explosive increase in the
number of diverse approaches that claim to be, if not a
"messiah", then at least a "prophet" for areas of professional
project management. Over the past few years (since 2010), a
huge number of events have occurred in the world of project
management related to the standardization of this area of
activity. In all this set of events, it is worth noting, in my
opinion, the main trends that are set by the "big players" of the
professional project management market on a truly global scale:
a.The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has
started the development of its family of standards related to the
management of projects, programs and project portfolios [1].
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II. PROBLEM
In the context of the three trends described above, the
first is the most important. Moreover, in the context of
the fact that the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO), finally, did not just turn its eyes
to "project management", but made very clear choice in
favor of a "raw material supplier" for its family of
standards related to project management, programs and
project portfolios. And PMI has won this global battle
for standards. It is well-deserved, given the regularity of
updating its basic standard PMI PMBOK Guide and its
distribution in the world, as well as the initially process
paradigm in the description of its recommendations.
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III. METHODS
What doesn’t just allow us to draw such a
conclusion about the existence of a problem, but
rather even compels us, is a comparative analysis of
two versions of IPMA ICB - the last, fourth, which,
at first glance, is just a "more compact" version of
the third version, in which there were much more
competency elements (46 in the ICB 3.0 [19] versus
and 29 in the ICB 4.0 models).
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III. METHODS
Description of the methodology: when creating the
model, the following steps were performed (for each of
the considered standards, in the same way, using the
same primary "empty" template):
1. An adjacency matrix is formed on the basis of
information on internal relationships between
competency elements (mutual influences) presented
directly in the standard text (for the ICB 3.0 standard,
all 46 elements are shown in Figure 1, for the ICB 4.0
standard, 28 out of 29 elements are shown in Figure 2);
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III. METHODS
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III. METHODS
2. An adjacency matrix of the second degree is obtained, in which
there are almost no zero elements (i.e., almost all connections
between all elements - both "direct" and "indirect" - through the
chain of connections (influences) through adjacent elements). The
second degree was taken to demonstrate a unified approach to the
analysis of the two systems under consideration;
3. For the resulting adjacency matrix of the appropriate degree, a
"system landscape" was constructed, which is a "map of elements"
reflecting the total number of influences from one element to another;
4. The necessary intermediate steps (and corresponding
calculations) have been performed to obtain a superposition matrix
for the entire set of system elements;
5. A transition probability matrix was created from the assumption
that the transitions between system elements are equally probable at
each step in accordance with the first-order adjacency matrix;
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III. METHODS
6. Information modeling was carried out for the resulting matrix to
obtain diagrams visualizing transients;
7. A diagram is constructed that visualizes the "contribution" of each
block of competency elements based on summing the transition
probabilities for the elements of the corresponding block (subsystem) for
each of the steps;
8. A transition probability matrix was created from the assumption that
the transitions between blocks (subsystems) are equally probable,
including elements of each of the subsystems at each step in accordance
with the first-order adjacency matrix;
9. The information modeling for the obtained matrix was carried out
with obtaining diagrams visualizing transients;
10. A diagram is constructed that visualizes the “contribution” of each
block of competency elements based on summing the transition
probabilities for the elements of the corresponding block (subsystem) for
each of the steps.
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III. METHODS
In both cases, the same basic template was used,
created using Microsoft Excel software. When
performing the calculation, exclusively standard
built-in functions were used) without connecting any
external libraries.
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IV. RESULTS
During the formation of the system landscape and transient
diagrams for displaying, manually set data ranges that
correspond to the initially entered initial data forming the first-
order adjacency matrix (including to exclude redundant empty
cells from the base template).
When grouping data by the elements of the corresponding
blocks (subsystems), the corresponding data ranges for
calculation were also manually adjusted (including the use of
color coding during formatting - in the same way for both
cases).
All calculations are based solely on the information presented
in the standards under consideration - without any changes that
go beyond the proposed structure of the elements and their
relationships.
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IV. RESULTS: ICB 3.0 INITIAL DATA
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IV. RESULTS: ICB 3.0 INITIAL DATA
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IV. RESULTS: ICB 4.0 INITIAL DATA
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IV. RESULTS: ICB 4.0 INITIAL DATA
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IV. RESULTS: 2 order adjacency matrix for ICB 3.0
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IV. RESULTS: 2 order adjacency matrix for
ICB 4.0
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IV. RESULTS: System landscape for ICB 3.0
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IV. RESULTS: System landscape for ICB 3.0
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IV. RESULTS: System landscape for ICB 4.0
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IV. RESULTS: System landscape for ICB 4.0
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IV. RESULTS: Transients for ICB 4.0 - matrix of
transition probabilities
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IV. RESULTS: Transients for ICB 4.0 - in the case of
equivalent competency elements
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IV. RESULTS: Transients for ICB 3.0 - total for blocks
(subsystems) - in the case of equivalent competency
elements
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IV. RESULTS: Transients for ICB 4.0 - total for blocks
(subsystems) - in the case of equivalent competency
elements
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V. DISCUSSION
The behavior of the two systems, which should, at first
glance, have a certain continuity, is different. This is
most clearly seen when comparing two "systemic
landscapes" for the studied systems (Figures 5 and 6).
Figure 4 is also dramatically different from Figure 3,
demonstrating the prevalence of the Practice block over
other blocks of competency elements.
In our opinion, this indicates that, despite the
preservation of the basic high-level structure (three
blocks of competency elements), internal relationships
seriously differ between the systems under consideration.
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V. DISCUSSION
This, in particular, is evidenced by the fact that already for the
first-order primary adjacency matrix for the IPMA ICB 4.0
standard, all the elements included in the corresponding block
(subsystem) are endowed with direct connections between each
other ("strong connections" according to the definition proposed
by the authors), as can be seen already in Figure 2, and in which
the differences with Figure 1 are immediately visible.
The system landscape shown in Figure 6 for the IPMA ICB
4.0 competency system is visually clearly segmented into 4
sections symmetrical in the number of elements. Moreover, the
number of elements that have the most significant impact on the
entire system through their connections completely includes all
elements of the "practice" block.
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VI. CONCLUSION
As can be seen from the comparison results, in fact, we are dealing
with two different standards, comparing IPMA ICB versions 3 and 4.
The difference is so obvious that, unfortunately, I want to conclude
that the approach that has been the basis of ICB for many years
back, no longer exists. The statement on the equivalence and
equivalence of the "Practice"-"Perspective"-"People" competency
blocks should be considered more likely as declarative. And all the
thoughts about the possible implementation of the "People first"
concept in the context of the ICB model, it seems worth forgetting
too. In the standard, the project manager actually remained in a
leadership position, and, quite expectedly, after "harmonization"
with ISO 21500, the elements corresponding to the Practice block
were almost completely included
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VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Gratitude of the Ukrainian Project Management
Association for the possibility of using in practice
IPMA standards for assessing the competencies of
project managers, as well as BNTU (Belarus) and
Project Management Bureau LLC (Ukraine) for
using the competency models developed by the
authors in the design and implementation of
educational programs.
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VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Gratitude of the Microsoft Excel for the possibility
of using in practice matrix calculations operations -
quick and easy, and Andrey Markov for method.
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VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Gratitude of the Researchgate for the possibility of
using in practice scientific communications around
papers, ideas, projects and some another documents,
like this presentation.
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Thank you for attention !
Dmytro Lukianov
Interdisciplinary Institute for Advanced Studies and Retraining
Belarusian National Technical University, Minsk, Republic of Belarus
lukianov@live.com
Krystsina Mazhei
Business Intelligence and Process Division
A1 Telekom Austria Group Belarus, Minsk, Republic of Belarus
k.mozhei@gmail.com
Viktor Gogunskii,
Department of Systems Management Life Safety
Institute of Medical Engineering
Odessa National Polytechnic University, Odessa, Ukraine
vgog@i.u
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