Projects are fashionable in management development programmes today, and for many good reasons. First, they provide unique opportunities for people from different parts of an organisation to work together on a company-wide issue, combining experience and learning from each other in the process. They provide a chance for ‘mobilising collective intelligence’ to tackle problems that may have been waiting for someone to work on or to research. If the programme is taking place in a business school, then its resources and facilities can be harnessed as a bonus. Many projects directly benefit the bottom line, and there are cases of programmes being paid for several times over through the implementation of project recommendations. Yet another reason for doing project work, particularly during the interims between multi-modular programmes, is to keep the learning momentum going. This can be enabled by virtual learning environments – so that people in different countries can continue working together. These are all attractive rationales. An additional argument is that doing projects enables the participants to travel further round the learning cycle – extending the ‘theory’ into action.

Like many fashionable tools and processes, it is too easy to rush into this particular programme component without thinking clearly exactly why we are doing it and what we seek to achieve. If they are to be an integral part of the content learning process, then projects chosen should be directly related to the classroom learning and completion should be followed by facilitated reflection. This reflection has to avoid being immersed in the project outcome itself, and focus on the application of learning. I prefer project work of this kind to be called ‘learning assignments’, and it is sometimes more appropriate for them to be individual rather than team based.

But perhaps the purpose of the projects is supplementary to, rather than an extension of, the classroom learning. They have their own learning objectives – for example, to experience and benefit from the diversity of the organisation through multifunctional and/or multinational teams, or to provide a platform for dialogue with senior management through the presentation and discussion (the kind of dialogue that may be rare or non-existent in the daily life of the workplace). This can provide a two-way learning opportunity – senior management listening to how issues are perceived further down, and participants benefiting from the experience and challenging of their bosses.

How should the subjects be chosen? It is often assumed they should be set by senior management, as this will ensure they will truly be of value to the business. This is a very questionable assumption. If a project is serious enough, someone else will already be working on it inside the organisation; but then if it is not too serious it will lack credibility with the participants. HRD directors will know how difficult it is to extract good projects from senior management – and even more so to have ones that link directly to the themes of the classroom.

While it is true that real benefits can result, the same could often be achieved by an internal taskforce quite independently of the learning programme. So let us be quite clear: do we want projects for learning reasons or are we just using the programme as a taskforce and communication opportunity at the same time? Either is fine, so long as we are not confused. If it’s the latter we should be careful about using project outcomes to justify the programme – we might have got them anyway without the cost of the programme at all!

If it is the former – that is, projects are part of planned learning – then it is probably better to find a mechanism for participants to choose their own project subjects under a broad heading such as ‘Our company would achieve its vision more effectively if …’ From a brainstorm of possible subjects, participants vote for their first and second choices, and are aligned, not necessarily in equal numbers, to projects they care about. I have found this effective in generating real commitment to the chosen subject, passion in presentation, and leading to a dialogue with senior management from a perspective they may not normally appreciate. The approach does run the risk, as all projects do, from domination by enthusiasts or the very knowledgeable, but actually stands as good a chance of ‘making a difference’ as the pre-set agendas.

Developers often like to think that people worry about their own development all the time, but of course this is not true. I know from my own operational experience that the pressure to solve the problems of the day and achieve results dominate the time allocation of the normal manager. So we need to be careful of imposing too much sidelining on them, however worthy, by expecting them to work to our own agenda. Even with all the technological aids available, this remains true. So the manager of learning needs to make space for the learning objectives to be achieved and not abdicate it to the learners to find it for themselves. How arrogant we are sometimes in the demands we make on the most precious commodity people have through making assumptions about what their priorities should be.

The learning cycle should remain the foundation of our design. But let us season its application with sensitivity and realism.

Andrew Mayo is a consultant, speaker, writer and facilitator in international HR management, with specialisms in people and organisation development. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 1727 843424, at andrew@mliltd.com or at www.mliltd.com

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