Axelos’s Directing Successful Projects with PRINCE2 guide is really, really clear about one thing: ‘One of the most important decisions a newly appointed [sponsor] will make is who to appoint to manage the project’.

All aspects of a project need to be taken into consideration, it adds, including its complexity, the political environment in which it exists, its size and a clear understanding of what’s required, before matching it to an appropriate — and available — person.

One of the most important decisions.

That’s how essential it is for your project that you get exactly the right person to lead it. Not the person ‘given’ to you by IT. Not a member of the accounts team because no one else wants to do it. The right person. A person who knows what it means to lead, build a team, create a strong plan, manage upwards, find ways to get things done in order to meet the expectations of you and your steering committee.

What you don’t want to do is pick someone who isn’t any of those things or who will simply tell you what you want to hear. Seth Godin calls these people Sheepwalkers. Staff who’ve been ‘raised’ to be obedient. That’s the last thing you need on a project.

In his book Start with Why, Simon Sinek says, ‘The goal is to hire people who believe what you believe’. Richard Sheridan, in his book Joy Inc., suggests you ‘hire humans, not polished résumés’.

For the past 10 years résumés are just how we’ve hired project managers. We’ve focused our attention on the badges they’ve attained (PRINCE2, PMP, Scrum and so on), rather than their resilience, attention to detail, ability to plan or, crucially, how they treat the people who work with them. A P2 Consulting project management survey found ‘no correlation between the organisations that report high levels of certification and those organisations that achieve positive results’.

Of course it’s important that people have these technical skills. This isn’t just about certification, though. It’s easier to filter out people who lack certificates than to use more ‘subjective’ measures such as the leadership they provide, the teams they create or the stakeholders who have been delighted with the experience they’ve had.

Finding the best fit means asking better questions.

Some of the best project managers I’ve ever hired haven’t had a special certificate or even much experience. Indeed, my best hire had previously been an executive assistant, as I describe in chapter 33. To find these people I ensured that the information they provided as part of the recruitment process gave me the opportunity to assess their leadership potential. By this I mean they included statements about the skills they’ve applied to be the best version of themselves, the environments they have created and how they have consistently used feedback from stakeholders to improve their performance.

As with project methods, there’s no best practice when it comes to hiring project managers, since each organisation is different. The following are five useful practices you can adopt. Certainly they may add time and cost to the recruitment process (even for internal hires), yet the goal has to be quality as only this will deliver the results you’re looking for.

1. Ask for written recommendations from stakeholders. How many reference checks have actually told you something you hadn’t already picked up in the interview? Instead, why not ask for written recommendations from project sponsors or stakeholders that you can follow up on to be reassured of their credentials before wasting more time and energy on interviews?
2. Ask them about their values. The very best project managers have a set of values that they exhibit in every piece of work they undertake. This is what drives their performance. You want to know that their values match up with your expectations before they start, so get them to list them in their application.
3. Ask them about the best team they created and how they did it. Get the candidates to describe in 200 words or less the best project team and culture they ever created, how they did it and what was so good about it. Also ask them how they’d go about recreating something similar in your organisation. Forget all those ‘describe a time when …’ prescribed answers in interviews. Find out how simply they can provide information about one of the most important parts of project management before you set them loose on your project.
4. Ask them to describe the biggest thing they learned about themselves on their last project. Great leaders (and the best project managers are great leaders) will constantly strive to better themselves, and that sometimes means learning from their mistakes. Find out how self-aware they are by asking them to share what they learned about themselves on their last project. You might also ask them how they bounced back quickly from failure. One candidate once told me that in six years as a project manager he’d never failed. The interview ended at that point.
5. Ask them about a time when they received great feedback and how it made them feel. We all like praise, and project managers are no different. The most tangible evidence of how well a project has been managed and governed is the feedback provided by stakeholders. Asking them about feedback demonstrates that they’re able to see the good in the cultures they create, which in turn creates teams that are a positive force for good.

Finding great project managers isn’t easy, as the talent pool has been much watered down by people who’ve only got a certificate and nothing else. Indeed, Ernst & Young recently removed the requirement for new graduates to hold a degree and have moved to human-centred questions instead. This clearly demonstrates the critical importance of relationship building and communication skills, especially for those in customer-facing roles.

There are plenty of great project managers out there, and when you find one you have to sell them your vision as a sponsor. You have to be clear about the value the project can bring to the organisation and how they have a critical role in leading a team to achieve just that.

In his book Creativity Inc., Ed Catmull points out, ‘The obvious payoffs of [hiring] exceptional people are that they innovate, excel, and generally make your company — and by extension you — look good’. Who doesn’t want that?