What is your personal elevator speech?
Today’s guest blogger, Lisa Grant, is the CEO of EPM Solutions, which specializes in leading companies to a consistent and effective projectized model through the use of a diverse group of experts. She has influenced and improved project management processes in various industries and functional areas such as Knowledge Management, Healthcare, e-Learning, State and Federal Government, Automotive, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Human Resources, Payroll, Textile, and Beverage verticals.
Lisa has an MBA with a concentration in Management from Georgia State University, is a Project Management Professional, Advanced Communicator – Bronze, and Competent Leader. She achieved the MS Office Project Blue Belt certification in 2006, spoke on “Lessons Learned” at the 2005 PMI Southeast Symposium and the 2008 PMI Atlanta Professional Development Day, was awarded a Most Valuable Player award for her exemplary service to the Atlanta Chapter of PMI, and is listed in the Who’s Who Registry. You can reach Lisa at lisa.grant@enterprisepmsolutions.com.
I recently purchased Researching the Value of Project Management from the Project Management Institute. It is a research-based book and therefore, not a list of tips, but a useful reference backed up by data. I was interested in learning the value of project management so I could sell it to management and better explain what I do. It’s especially important for practitioners to have an elevator speech on the value of project management, therefore their role, now that many of them are or may be looking for jobs.
The research document described five categories of value as: Satisfaction, Alignment, Process Outcomes, Business Outcomes and Return on Investment. Using these five categories as a guide, I experimented with writing my elevator speech. Here it is:
“I am a project management practitioner who enables organizational success by facilitating the accomplishment of its strategic projects through consistent processes, effective communication and stakeholder collaboration.”
Here is an explanation of how I settled on this statement based on the five categories of value:
Satisfaction is the degree that stakeholders realize satisfaction through project management. I referenced stakeholder collaboration which implies that their involvement results in a degree of satisfaction.
Alignment refers to process efficiencies and the level of consistency and understanding in an organization. I mentioned consistent processes and effective communication.
Process Outcomes is measured by time, resources and specifications. I imply this with my choice of the word “accomplishment,” and the reference to consistent processes which, in the project management discipline, refers to project success as the achievement of schedule, budget, and quality of the specified outcome.
Business Outcomes is associated with the creation of actual business outcomes as a result of project management. Was the business more profitable as a result of the project management processes? Did the origanization gain market share? This is covered in my “organization success” and “strategic projects” reference. I know that I am assuming that all projects actually do contribute positively to business outcomes, but it is an elevator speech after all.
Return on Investment is defined as the cost-benefit that organizations actually achieve as a result of the project management discipline. Again, I cover this with the “organizational success” phrase.
Career coaches always say you should have your 30-second elevator speech ready when someone asks “What do you do?”. Tom Peters calls it your personal brand. Whatever you call it, you need it. I’m suggesting a value framework that can be used to design your tagline. Give it a try.