Resolution: "Train Everyone in PM!"

Training everyone in the company in PM was a competitive edge for one company. It could be the same for yours.

Looking back over the past year, one of the most inspiring clients that I’ve worked with is the California-based renewable energy powerhouse (pun intended) SunEdison.

It’s not just that they are a wildly successful global company … or that they represent an industry that is cutting edge … or even that they chose PM College to be their training partner.

Mostly I’m impressed with the way their corporate leadership, taking into consideration all the many aspects of a very complex business, zeroed in on program management as the key to their future success. To quote our recently-released case study, “As they experienced success in developing and acquiring solar projects, the company realized they would have to establish a culture of flawless execution to keep up their pace. Their CEO’s decision that program management skills would be a key to ensuring operational excellence led them to search out project and program management training that they could tailor to their business and enable operational excellence.”

This story follows the one they shared with us early in the year, when we interviewed a number of our training clients about how they assess the value of their training programs. In our PM College white paper, Project Management: Not Just for Project Managers, SunEdison was one of three companies that we showcased. In part, this was because they had made the decision to train all the company’s employees; but also because they had “moved beyond the usual training measurements,” using PM maturity assessment to gauge the company’s progress in this key area.

Did it work? Success is hard to argue with! My hope is that other organizations will follow SunEdison’s lead as we move into a new year. Resolve to instill program management excellence across the entire enterprise. Then let the sun shine in!