London, 2009-Jan-26
Siemens plc, the UK subsidiary of Europe’s largest engineering company, has become the first corporate company to have its project management development programme accredited by the Association for Project Management (APM), itself one of the largest professional bodies of its kind in Europe, setting the benchmark for excellence in project management across all sectors of industry.
“What Siemens have achieved is impressive” said APM chief executive Andrew Bragg. “We have 500 corporate and 17,000 individual members and we expect many other companies to follow this lead as it reinforces the professional approach to project management that we have been championing. Accreditation of the Siemens programme was the final pilot of the APM corporate accreditation scheme before to its full launch in Spring 2009.”
Paul Hodgkins, PM@Siemens programme executive, said “We are delighted to have achieved APM accreditation. Siemens has project managers working on many highprofile and complex infrastructure projects in diverse industry sectors from rail projects, to building hospitals, power stations and delivering digital media solutions to broadcasters. Our accreditation recognises our efforts as part of our company-wide PM@Siemens programme, to ensure our project management development processes are ‘best practice’.
During the last few years Siemens has developed a benchmarking capability tool called PM Future World within the PM@Siemens programme. This tool, which formed part of APM’s accreditation of Siemens, provides a common and consistent way of evaluating the competence and capability of any Siemens project manager, anywhere in the world. It provides an individual with a benchmark against Siemens’ global project management career model as well as indicating competency strength and development needs.
A PM@Siemens Academy was also established with the involvement of Adrian Logan in Siemens Learning and Development and APM approved training providers to help drive consistent development and enshrine the ethos of professional project management at Siemens in line with the APM ‘body of knowledge’ and the Siemens global project business programme, PM@Siemens. During the accreditation process the APM assessing team acknowledged: “When it comes to professional project management and the value of it – Siemens is the benchmark.”
One of the challenges a company like Siemens faces is that professional expertise may exist in one department of the business and be needed in another. Working consistently to APM standards across the group, means that Siemens benefits from having a highly professional community of project managers with skills that are transferable from one industry sector to another. This gives customers a broad range of skills to tap into and enhances the employees’ potential to increase their portfolio of experience.
“We hope our APM accredited status and our ability to offer a wide variety of interesting and challenging projects will help us continue to attract and retain the most talented graduates and young professionals who want to carve their careers in project management at Siemens,” said Hodgkins
Siemens has more than 400 practising project managers in the UK.
About the APM
APM is the largest independent professional body of its kind in Europe. It has over 17,000 individual and 500 corporate members throughout the UK and abroad. APM aims to develop and promote project management across all sectors of industry and beyond. At its heart is the APM Body of Knowledge; fifty-two knowledge areas required to manage any successful project. APM promotes professional project management, which is defined by its five dimensions of professionalism:
- breadth of understanding as defined by the APM Body of Knowledge.
- depth of ability in line with the APM Competence Framework.
- achievement through professional qualifications and a portfolio of evidence.
- commitment through Continuing Professional Development.
- accountability through APM membership and its the code of professional conduct.
